


Elementary 09: The Baker Street Years II (1887)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary: The Complete Cases of Castiel Novak (and Dean Winchester) [9]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: 221A Baker Street, 221B Baker Street, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Dean in Panties, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Gay Sex, Hotel Sex, Implied/Referenced Suicide, London, M/M, Massage, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Serial Killers, Sex on a Billiard-Table, Spooning, Theft, sex on a train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-14 20:13:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4578366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Case 29. ALEX ANNIE ALEXIS ANN (formerly 'The Sign of the Four')</b><br/>Case 30. HUNTED (The Matter Of The Grice-Pattersons On The Isle Of Uffa)<br/>Case 31. TIME AFTER TIME (The Case Of The Dead Man's Watch)<br/>Case 32. UNFORGIVEN (The Affair At The Tankerville Club)<br/>Case 33. TRIAL AND ERROR (The Case Of The Murderous Bert Stevens)<br/><b>Case 34. PHANTOM TRAVELLER (formerly 'Silver Blaze')</b><br/>Case 35. PROVENANCE (The Case Of The Grosvenor Square Removal Van)<br/><b>Case 36. … AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (formerly 'The Adventure Of The Five Orange Pips')</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

A further selection of cases from Baker Street can be found here, taking us up to Cas' and my great adventure abroad. This period of just over five months was marked, moreover, by the advent of two women into our lives, whose effects were very, very different. Mrs. Margaret Masters, a demon if ever there was one, clearly entertained hopes of enticing Cas to the marital bed, which I determined would happen over her dead body. And Miss Charlotta Bradbury proved that the female of the species can be deadlier than the male, especially when she knows the sort of things that other people would most definitely prefer that she did not.

Over half of these cases took place in or close to London, a facet of Cas' published cases that has sometimes drawn attention. It was not that Cas was unwilling to travel to distant parts of the realm if the need arose – indeed, he would shortly plunge right across the length and breadth of Europe, partly for reasons that involved my good self and partly so that criminals there should realize that they were not safe from that great brain and greater heart. My friend believed however, quite rightly, that there was little need for him to go to the expense of travelling here and there – railway travel was both expensive and sometimes dangerous – when he could solve matters with a little thought from his fireside chair in Baker Street. Besides, he said, that left more time for sex.

I could not argue with that. Nor did I really want to.


	2. Case 29: Alex Annie Alexis Ann (1887)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously published as 'The Sign Of The Four'.

I

This case resides in my memory for two reasons. First, a story involving serial killing ended up, by a terrible coincidence, being published just as the city of London was being terrorized by a serial killer, and even though the dates and events in the story showed I could not have foreseen this, I still felt somewhat guilty. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the case brought a female - I refuse to use the term 'lady' - into our lives who was to make Cas tell me exactly what he really thought of me.

+~+~+

It was the eighth of June, barely two weeks until the Golden Jubilee celebrations, when I opened my newspaper at our breakfast table to read about the various happenings in the Great Wen. I had almost finished when the great detective lurched out of his room and, unusually, headed for his fireside chair rather than his coffee and Mrs. Harvelle's delicious breakfast. More than a little perturbed – this was like the Moon deciding it would prefer to orbit Venus rather than Earth for a while – I poured him his over-sweetened coffee and took it to his chair, wherein he had slumped. He had got in after I had fallen asleep last night and, unusually, had slept alone, though looking at his wrecked form now, I could guess why. He looked absolutely awful! Bloodshot blue eyes gazed remorsefully up at me.

“I was at Gabriel's restaurant last night”, he whispered, his voice hoarse. “All those theories about a man's alcohol capacity being linked to body mass? Tommyrot!”

I went and fetched him a plateful of bacon, which he accepted with a weak smile. 

“Balthazar is coming over today”, he said.

I frowned. Still, at least I would miss the supercilious, overbearing, pompous stuffed ass.

“I sometimes think that you do not exactly like him”, Cas said, looking quizzically at me.

(I hated it when he read my mind like that. Well, except during sex, when it was quite useful......)

“He takes advantage of you”, I grunted, trying to drag my mind out of its preferred location in the gutter. “I shall be in my room, writing. With the door locked.”

“Your work progresses well?” he asked.

I nodded. 

“I have nearly completed 'Dead Man's Blood', the case involving the second stain”, I said, “and then I have to edit it. I think that takes longer than the actual writing!”

I stopped. He was looking disappointed for some reason.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I was hoping you might stay when he calls”, he said, looking anywhere but at me. “I know you do not like him much, but I am sure he has another interesting case for us both.”

Again, I felt a silly little warm feeling at the 'us both'. 

“Besides”, he went on, “your presence annoys him so much!”

“So you just want me here to tease your brother?” I pouted. “Hmph!”

“Of course not!” he protested.

I looked sharply at him. He took a mouthful of bacon and looked sheepish.

“Well, not completely”, he muttered.

I sighed. I could never say no to the man.

+~+~+

He had, of course, been right. The scowl on Mr. Balthazar Novak's face when I sat down at the table was almost worth putting up with the jumper-wearing playboy. He quite clearly wanted to object, but his brother had equally clearly made it plain that my presence was non-negotiable.

“This case only came to light by a fluke”, he said. “We have been lucky. Even so, it may end very badly if we cannot stop what looks like a serial killer.”

“On the first of this month, Miss Elizabeth Wakefield went to open up her mother's sweet-shop in the Strand”, he said. “They sell some of the very finest confectionery, and they serve some of the top people in the land. After unlocking the store, she set things up, and after a while went to the back office to make herself a cup of tea. There she found the dead body of her mother, Mrs. Annie Wakefield. She had been shot, and it was later established that it must have happened around closing time the day before. Unfortunately Miss Wakefield had been staying with friends in Essex overnight, so did not notice her mother's absence from their Bayswater home. I should also add that the body had been dragged some little distance, inferring that she had been shot in the store itself.”

“It so happened that the constable who initially attended the call was one Michael Finnigan, based at your friend Henriksen's station. Naturally as a murder investigation it passed out of his hands, but he did have to write a report stating what he had found when he arrived at the scene. It was one odd thing that stuck in his memory, and a good thing as it happened.”

“What?” I asked.

“There was a deck of playing-cards on the table, as if she had been playing patience”, Balthazar said. “The fours had all been removed, and were lined up on the edge of the table. Except for the four of hearts, which was on the floor. Finnigan remembered that because there was a large heart-shaped chocolate on display in the window. Someone had written a list of names on the fallen card, and he noted them down; 'Alex, Annie, Alexis, Ann'”

“It had looked like just another pointless murder”, Balthazar continued, “until I got a call from Sergeant Bristol down at the station in Brockley. Finnigan's cousin Henry West works at his station, and last night he went there to pick him up and go into town for a drink. Although it's technically against the rules, naturally they discussed the cases they were on or had done recently, and West told his cousin about a murder that had been reported that same day. They rushed back to Finnigan's station and told Henriksen, who immediately had me informed.”

“What was so unusual about the second murder?” Cas asked, pressing his long fingers together.

Balthazar flipped open his notebook.

“Miss Louise Mainwaring was found dead at her house in Endwell Road at nine yesterday morning”, he said. “She was an unusual lady, by all accounts. Her passion was gardening, and she offered a complete gardening service for her customers. She would design, build and even maintain whatever garden her clients wanted.”

“I am to take it playing-cards are involved again?” Cas asked. His brother nodded.

“The three other fours had been removed, and the four of spades lay on the floor”, he said. “It had the same list of names on it as at the first murder. It was West's mention of the fours that twigged young Finnegan to what was happening. And Miss Mainwaring's middle name is Alexis. This is bad.”

“Murder is always bad”, I intoned.

The brothers both looked at me.

“Balthazar is referring not just to the cards”, Cas said, “but to the dates.”

I stared in confusion.

II

“What happens in two weeks' time?” Balthazar asked snappily.

I suddenly saw what he was driving at. My stomach plummeted.

“Her Majesty!” I gasped. Balthazar nodded.

“Assuming that Her Majesty, whom we know is christened Alexandrina, is the Four of Diamonds – and she does have a crown with four prominent stones in it – then if 'the 'Four of Clubs', Ann, is murdered six days from now, we have someone who could cause a complete panic in the city”, he said. “We may even have to cancel all Her Majesty's public appearances.”

“I doubt she will agree to that”, Cas observed. “Assassination attempts are par for the course for royalty, and she has survived her fair share of them. She may still be grieving her late husband, but she will not shirk from meeting her faithful public.”

“I would like you to do what you can to find 'Ann”, Balthazar said. “Preferably before she – or our monarch - meets their doom.”

“It is all rather odd, do you not think?” Cas said thoughtfully.

“A playing-card serial killer with a penchant for killing people whose names start with an 'A'?” Balthazar scoffed. “No, we get those every other week!”

Cas glared at him. His brother subsided. I only narrowly suppressed a snigger.

“If the person behind these crimes wished merely to assassinate Her Majesty, he could easily strike at a time and place of his choosing”, he said. “This ties him to a single day, and even though she will be processing through London, the security will be formidable. I wonder if the motives behind these crimes is perhaps more complex?”

“I don't care what the bastard's motives are”, Balthazar said curtly. “I just want him stopped.”

“Or her”, I muttered. 

“'She' would have to be very muscular, then”, Balthazar said. “Mrs. Wakefield was a large woman, and she was dragged a fair distance, including up a short flight of stairs.”

“I should like to see Mrs. Wakefield's shop”, Cas said. “Is that possible?”

“Her daughter is running the place now, so I don't see why not”, his brother said. “Will you go today?”

“Yes”, Cas said. “You can see if you can find 'the Four of Clubs', whilst Winchester and I will go down the Strand.”

+~+~+

We had lunched at my favourite little restaurant in Trafalgar Square, and were walking down to the confectionery shop when I suddenly stopped.

“Look!” I said excitedly, pointing across the road. 

Cas followed my arm, but only looked at me in confusion.

“The sporting wear shop!” I said. “'Clubs' could refer to golf!”

“Very good, doctor”, my friend smiled. “We shall have to send a message to Balthazar, to tell him to investigate that possibility. Ah, we are here.”

The Chocolate House was a small but tidy little shop, and I had to admit that the display of chocolaty goodness was making me hungry again. It was hard to believe that we had known of the drink for hundreds of years, but the first actual chocolate bar had only appeared ten years into Her Majesty's reign. To my surprise Cas did not enter the shop, but looked thoughtfully at the doorway for some time. It was directly next to the entrance to the tobacconist's next door, and it was into that shop that he walked. A young alpha looked up from cleaning the counter as he approached.

“Mr. Martin Honeydew?” Cas asked politely.

“No”, the man said, “I'm his son, Miles. How may I be of service?”

“I am investigating the tragic murder of Mrs. Wakefield”, Cas said. “Were you or your father here on the evening in question?”

The man scratched his chin in thought.

“I was here”, he said. “But the Wakefields keep - kept - themselves to themselves, pretty much.”

Cas smiled lazily, and leaned across the counter.

“Mr. Honeydew”, he said quietly, “it really would behoove you to tell me the whole truth. I should tell you that the Metropolitan Police Service does not take kindly to people who withhold information about a crime, for whatever reason.”

The man went so pale that I feared he was going to faint, and I moved forward. He grasped the counter for support.

“Sir.....”

“It is Miss Wakefield's locket that you are wearing, is it not?” Cas said gently. “Mr. Honeydew, if you tell us all, I can ensure the information reaches the right people, and that you do not suffer. Otherwise however, I would be obliged to inform the local police directly. I doubt they would be quite so understanding.”

He swallowed hard, then pulled himself together and came round to the door. He flipped the sign over to 'Closed', and shut the blinds; fortunately the light from the large front window kept the room from being dark. He returned to his place behind the counter and eyed us warily.

“Her mother caught me in the back garden just after closing”, he admitted. “She has never approved of my suit. We exchanged angry words; I doubt anyone overheard us, but I was probably the last person to see her alive.”

Cas looked thoughtful.

“Do you know if she had locked up by then?” he asked.

“Oh yes!” the tobacconist said fervently. “The shop was broken into last year, which was when she had the extra security gate fitted at the front.”

“But someone could have gained access through the back?”

“I do not think so. After our confrontation, I spent the next two hours working in the garden. There is only a low fence between us, and I am sure that I would have seen anyone entering the house that way.”

Cas nodded at that.

“I shall tell Sergeant Henriksen that you only remembered this when I questioned you”, he said reassuringly. “Doctor Winchester and I must be on our way. Good-day, sir.”

We left the tobacconist, and I was again surprised that Cas did not go into the confectioner's, instead hailing a cab to take us back to Baker Street.

“We know a little more about the time of death, then”, I said.

“We know much more than that”, he said gravely.

“How so?” I asked.

“Mrs. Wakefield must have known her killer”, he said. “Mr. Honeydew said she was very security-conscious, which fits with what we know of her, yet she must have admitted someone through that locked gate. Presumably the killer locked the gate again when he left and threw the keys away, most likely into the Thames.”

“What about our second victim, Miss Mainwaring?” I asked.

“Henriksen is sending Constable West to see us when he clocks on, first thing tomorrow”, Cas said. “He says the man keeps excellent records. We shall see.”

III

There is a saying that you know you are getting old when policemen start to look too young to do their job. I was only thirty-five, but Constable Henry West looked like he was barely out of school. He was clearly nervous about meeting us, but he had brought his notebook with him.

“A boy brought a message into the station at just before nine a.m.”, he began.

“Who from?” Cas interrupted.

“He said a man with a red face – I know – knocked on his door and asked if someone could take an urgent message to the local police station, as something terrible had happened at Number Eight”, the policeman said. “Constable Williams took down what description he could, but all the boy could remember was that he was youngish, plump, had red hair to match his face, and smelt funny. Like a paint factory, the boy said. The man gave him a sixpence for the job, which is well over the going rate, but he said it was urgent.”

“I presume no-one answering that description emerged later in the case?” Cas asked.

“Miss Mainwaring's brothers all have dark hair, so no. And the boy described the man as thin, which none of the brothers are. I ran to the house....”

“Sorry to keep interrupting you, constable”, Cas said, “but were you the first officer to reach the murder scene?”

“Yes, sir.”

Cas frowned.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The police station is five streets away from the murder scene”, Cas said. “Balthazar sent me a map of the area. Two constables patrol there, and anyone wishing to summon the police would surely have first sent someone to find one of them.”

“I did think that, sir”, Constable West said, “and I took the precaution of asking both Williams and Allen if they saw anything. Williams was half a mile away, but Allen was in the next street. If this man had blown a whistle or even yelled, he would have come running.”

“We may assume, therefore, that whoever sent the boy wanted time to remove themselves from the area”, Cas said. “So far, so good. Proceed with your fascinating tale, please.”

“I reached the house at a little before a quarter past nine”, the constable said. “The town hall clock was striking as I passed the front gate. The front door was closed but unlocked. I entered, and after a search found the deceased lady in the lounge. She had been shot once, at close range, and probably less than half an hour before my arrival.”

“Are you certain?” Cas asked.

“Quite, sir. I.... um, I enjoy detective fiction, and particularly the tales of your good self. Not in your stories, but I read once that shooting someone close in leaves a scorch mark, which does not happen at a distance. Miss Mainwaring knew her attacker, as she not only admitted him to the house, but let him into the lounge. There was no sign of her body having been moved after death. And the wound had clearly only just stopped bleeding.”

“You have done well, constable”, Cas smiled. “Anything else?”

The policeman hesitated.

“It may be nothing, sir”, he said, “but there was a fire in the lounge.”

“So?” I asked.

Cas tutted at me.

“Dean, the temperature in the last few days has been well into the twenties”, he said. “Miss Mainwaring would have no need of a fire, or at least, not for warmth. Which reminds me; what about servants?”

“Miss Mainwaring lived alone except for a housemaid, Mavis Wright”, the constable said. “She lives down the road at number forty-one. That was the other odd thing; she did not lay the fire, which must mean either Miss Mainwaring or her killer did. Poor Mavis had gone home to check on her invalid mother; her mistress did not object provided all her tasks were done. She arrived back ten minutes after I came, and fainted in the hall when I told her what had happened.”

“Did she later say whether Miss Mainwaring was in the habit of admitting people to her house?” Cas asked.

“She was not”, the constable said firmly. “She valued her independence, and was a full partner in the gardening business with her three brothers. All of whom, when I checked, also had excellent alibis for the time of death.”

“Cui bono?” I muttered.

“No-one, really”, the constable said. “I talked with her lawyer, and he told me the contents of her will in confidence; it'll be in the paper in a few days. She left Mavis Wright a small legacy, but of course now the girl is out of a job. Her share in the business is split equally between her brothers, and her house and moneys all go to the local cat's home. I might add that she told her lawyer that no-one was to know about the will. Of course, when Mike told me about the playing-card in his murder, I insisted on going and seeing his boss and telling him about the connection.”

Cas nodded.

“Have you yourself any thoughts about whether or not there will be two more murders?” he asked.

The man reddened.

“I got the link about the royal connection, sir”, he said. “But finding someone with a connection to the number four and clubs in a city this size – it's all but impossible. And we don't know whether Ann is her first or middle name.”

“I agree”, my friend said. “Let us hope Sergeant Henriksen can find something.”

IV

Sergeant Henriksen found too much. He had brought a map of the city, with red dots on each of the potential victims. It looked like it had had an outbreak of measles.

“It's impossible!” he exclaimed. “We found seventy-one people who could be the next victim, and we can't warn all of them, or someone will talk to the press. And then we'll have a major panic!”

“Which I suspect the victim wants”, Cas muttered. “We are missing something here, gentlemen. We have a murder in the Strand, and one in Brockley. Apart from the number four, is there any other connection?”

There was an awkward silence, until Cas suddenly slapped his hand onto the table.

“Trains!”

“What?” I asked.

He did not answer, but pointed to two spots on the map. 

“Numbers thirteen and sixty-four”, he said. “Who are they?”

Henriksen checked his list. 

“Sixty-four is Mrs. Ann Corton Fourmile, who runs a small shop in the Surrey Quays. Married to an alpha with one young son, her husband is a member of the darts club at the local tavern, which is weak but it is a link. Thirteen is Mrs. Margaret Ann Masters, nee Fortescue, who lives in Bermondsey. Again a weak link but the doctor could be right; her late husband used to play golf, and she still has his clubs. He died in a train wreck two years ago.”

Cas sat back, a knowing smile on his face.

“Henriksen”, he said lazily, “I think we may be able to catch a killer.”

+~+~+

As a doctor, I make it a point not to let my personal feelings ever get the better of me, or at least I try to. But the first sight of Mrs. Margaret Masters, and my good intentions went out of the window. I knew her husband had died not so long ago, but within moments it was clear both that she was looking to re-marry, and that she considered Cas the ideal candidate. The hungry way she looked at him whilst we introduced ourselves made me feel more than a little uneasy. Fortunately Henriksen was able to impress on her the need for secrecy, and we were soon ensconced safely in her back room, well away from her hungry dark eyes. 

“You are sure you told no-one at the station about this?” Cas asked.

“You don't think one of my own men....” 

“Gossip is the fastest thing after light”, Cas interrupted. “I would rather not take any chances, as this may be our only chance to stop the man before an attack on Her Majesty.”

Henriksen nodded his agreement.

“I sent that message you wanted to young West”, he said. “You were right, you smug bastard! When he found the boy, the lad did remember one other odd thing about the man, though I don't see how it helps your case.”

“Was it the fact that his hair was wet, even though it was not raining?” Cas asked.

I chuckled quietly to myself, as Henriksen's jaw dropped open. He stared hard at my friend, but Cas just shrugged and would say nothing. Instead we discussed a rota for sleeping, as we could not chance that the killer would not strike during the night. 

I had the first watch, and thankfully, he did not. Three hours later I woke Henriksen, and managed to get about five hours' sleep before being shaken awake by my friend. From the weak light coming in through the thin curtains, it was around dawn.

“Rise, doctor”, he whispered. “Someone is at the door.”

I reached for my pistol, and readied myself. We could hear Mrs. Masters opening the door to her visitor, and from her tone she did not seem that surprised. However, she followed the instructions Cas had given her, and told her visitor that she would be back shortly, but had to check her breakfast. She then hurried into our room (fortunately it was next to the kitchen), and we waited.

After what seemed like an eternity, the visitor walked quietly down the hall, and the door handle slowly turned. It was light outside, but the room was poorly lit by the one window, by which Mrs. Masters was standing. I was hidden behind the screen, watching through a small peep-hole I had found, whilst Cas was behind a dresser and Henriksen behind the open door into the kitchen. The visitor was male and wearing dark clothes, but I could make out nothing more – until I saw the unmistakable glint of a gun.

Henriksen stepped out from behind the door, and the man turned to point his weapon at him, only to have it dashed from his hand by Cas' stick, which came down on the visitor's wrist with a thwack. He groaned in pain, and by the time he had recovered Henriksen had the cuffs on him. He struggled at first, but the feel of my pistol pressing into his chest soon quieted him. Mrs. Masters turned on the gas-light, and we could finally see his face. Henriksen gasped in shock.

It was Constable Michael Finnigan.

V

Henriksen quickly summoned a local policeman, and within half an hour the man had been taken away. I was relieved it was all over, though uneasy again at the way Mrs. Masters all but draped herself over Cas in gratitude. The man seemed more than a little surprised at her over-eagerness, though I noted he did not attempt to move away. I frowned.

“What I want to know”, Henriksen said, “is how you knew he'd come here, of all the seventy-odd people we had lined up.”

“Constable West gave me a clue”, Cas said, detaching himself (at last!) from the overly-effusive Mrs. Masters. She visibly sulked at that.

“I don't remember him saying anything”, I said. 

“It was not what he said, but what he had in his hand”, Cas said. “A return ticket to his home in New Cross Gate.”

All three of us stared in confusion.

“Consider the location of the first two murders”, he said. “The first was in the Strand, which adjoins onto Charing Cross railway station. The second was in Brockley, less than five minutes from another railway station owned by the South Eastern Railway Company. That, plus the fact that we knew Michael Finnigan shared a house with his cousin, suggested that at least one of them was involved. The railway offered a quick getaway in both cases, and would have done so from this house, which is also on the same line as the first two murders.”

“So that's why you chose this place!” Henriksen exclaimed.

Cas nodded.

“I would speculate that Constable Finnigan is a covert supporter of Irish independence, several of whose fringe elements have threatened to disrupt the forthcoming Jubilee celebrations”, he said. “The murders were, I am sorry to say, incidental. I am sure that, had he been successful here, then the story of the playing-card serial murderer and the implication that Her Majesty might be the next target would have been leaked to the press. The whole ceremony would probably have had to have been cancelled, or even if it had gone ahead, many would have stayed away in fear.”

“The first murder is easy. Mrs. Wakefield admits a policeman into her shop, because who would suspect an officer of the law? Mr. Honeydew told us how worried she was about security, so clearly the person she admitted – because there was no forced entry – had to have been someone she could at least trust, if not someone she knew.”

“The second murder is more difficult, because he needs it to be discovered, but not too soon. He knew that Miss Mainwairing used her gardening skills to make herbal preparations, one of which he could use to dye his hair and create a disguise.”

“That was why his hair was wet!” I exclaimed.

Cas nodded.

“And the smell, if you remember”, he said. “The fire serves two purposes; to get rid of the towel he used to try to dry his hair afterwards, and to confuse us slightly over the time of death, as it would delay the cooling process post mortem. He sends the boy to the station some streets away, and therefore has time to hurry to the railway station, where he takes the train home, and washes the colour out of his hair. He then arranges to meet with his cousin in London that evening and they naturally discuss work, which means the connection between the murders comes out. Naturally they inform Henriksen, and the scene is set.”

“You are wonderful, Mr. Novak!” Mrs. Masters gushed, surging towards him. “I shall never be able to repay you!”

He deftly avoided being groped again, and dodged behind Henriksen before grasping his coat. I may or may not have accidentally moved into Mrs. Masters' way as she tried to reach him.

“Come, Dean”, he said, as the sergeant left the room. “We should return to Baker Street.”

It would have been totally infantile of me to stick my tongue out at Mrs. Masters as we left the room, and completely beneath a man of my position. But I did it anyway.

+~+~+

Ii was shortly after we reached our rooms in Baker Street that I noticed my friend was moving stiffly.

“What is wrong?” I asked anxiously.

“I think I may have pulled a muscle whilst striking his gun away”, Cas said, twitching uncomfortably. “I am sure it will pass.”

“I have some unguent for pulls”, I offered. “Would you like me to put some on you?”

He smiled his small, genuine smile.

“Thank you, doctor”, he said.

We went upstairs, and he took off his shirt and vest before sitting astride one of the chairs. I fetched the unguent, and began applying it.

“Cold!” he muttered.

“It soon warms up”, I said, pressing the unguent firmly into his broad back. For such a slight man he was surprisingly muscled. “Though I doubt it will ever get as hot as Mrs. Masters today. She was all over you!”

“More's the pity”, he sighed, before letting out a pleasurable groan. “Oh, that is good!”

I applied a little more pressure, and leaning in, I could smell the ivory soap he used every morning. I sighed contentedly.

“Dean”, he muttered.

He had used my Christian name. Oh.

“Yes?” I said, trying to keep my voice level.

“I am sorry.”

I paused in my ministrations, momentarily confused.

“Sorry for what?” I asked.

“I am sorry that the world is the way it is”, he said, so quietly that I could hardly hear him. “I am sorry that I cannot come out and say 'I love you, Dean Winchester' in front of everyone, because you and I both know how society is. The people who will only tolerate what we have as long as there is any doubt; we both know that they would fall on us like the wrath of God if we made what we have public. I love you so much, and you deserve so much more.”

I continued to knead the unguent into his back, and he sighed.

“My business, such as it is, would be ruined of course, but I could cope with that. We both know that your life as a doctor would be over. Mankind had progressed so much, but not enough for what we have to be publicly acknowledged. And I know I am a cold fish at the best of times, but I love you so much, and I do not think I could go on without you.”

I swallowed. 

“I love you too, Cas”, I whispered, nibbling along his shoulders as I continued to apply the unguent. “I will always love you. And as long as we have each other, that is enough for me.”

He surprised me by turning round more quickly than should have been humanely possible, and I found himself wrapped around me. From the way he was shaking I knew instinctively that he was crying, but I said nothing. It was true that I did, in my stupider moments, wish for more than we had, but I had this most wonderful man in my life, and that would have to be enough. Losing him for three years had been torture, and I knew I wanted to be with him forever.

+~+~+

In our next adventure, a theft that is not a theft, and the unwanted (and far too rapid) reappearance of Mrs. Margaret Masters......


	3. Case 30: Hunted (1887)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished, referred to elsewhere as 'the case of the Grice-Pattersons on the Isle of Uffa'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The (imaginary) Isle of Uffa is located near the real-life town of Whittlesey. It is an exclave because it is separated from the rest of Huntingdonshire, and surrounded partly by the Isle of Ely and partly by the Soke of Peterborough. An enclave would be surrounded totally by a single other political entity.

I

For a week after the conclusion to our previous case, I was, I admit, in something of a daze. True, I had always hoped that Cas would return my love, but the unequivocal way in which he had made his feelings for me clear after that awful encounter with the awful Mrs. Margaret Masters – it had left me stunned. Throughout that week Cas was much more attentive to me than normal, never passing up a chance to touch me for the reassurance he knew that I craved. I should really have despised myself for being such an omega over all of this, but I needed that man. And his care and tenderness towards me – it was wonderful.

+~+~+

“I. Have. A. Caaaaaase!”

I should probably have been paying more attention to Cas when he informed me of his news, though the fact that he punctuated every one of his words by thrusting his cock hard against my prostate caused me to roll my eyes back in my head and lose all power of... well, anything, really. The tenderness of the past week was gone as if it had never existed; this was Cas raw and brutal, one hand splayed on my bed for support whilst his other was grasped firmly around the base of my cock, preventing me from achieving orgasm. Though if he kept that up, I would probably break through his grip anyway. Now I knew just how a volcano felt before erupting!

“What is it?” I gasped, my eyes watering. “And for God's sake, let go of me!”

He grinned a particularly evil grin, and I knew my troubles were far from over. Cas always came over as a little man, but in fact he was a fraction over six foot tall (though an inch shorter than me in height). However, that smaller frame was pure muscle, and he had no difficulty in manhandling me wherever he wanted. Not that I ever put up much of a fight. God, I loved what he did to me!

“Henriksen has an odd case of theft in Huntingdonshire”, he growled, and oh my Lord, he changed his angle and caught my prostate even more firmly. I grunted in disapproval – well, approval, if truth be told. The man was trying to kill me through sex!

Again!

“Odd?” I managed. It was blatantly unfair that he could screw me into incoherence, whilst he remained able to talk as if he was sat there reading a newspaper, not buried balls-deep in his lover.

“An old friend of his, a Mr. Lancelot Quinn, had retired to close by the area where it happened. Normally the local constable would deal with a case of theft, but this is.... different.”

And now the bastard was using his other hand to tweak my over-sensitive nipples, making me want to come even more. I let out a guttural snarl, and he chuckled.

“Long way!" was all I was capable of. He nodded in agreement.

“True”, he said, “except the other reason for Henriksen's visit was that someone came to his station asking for me. A certain Mrs. Margaret Masters.”

I stared at him in shock. I was so surprised that I did not even notice that he had released his death-grip until my body, deciding for itself, shuddered as I came violently. He continued to run his hands over my chest, and once I had collapsed back exhausted, reached for the wet cloth which, to my complete lack of surprise, he had ready.

“She is still around?” I muttered. “Like a bad smell.”

He smiled.

“Henriksen will be round in about an hour to tell us more”, he said. “Do you think you will be able to sit down by then?”

Cocky bastard! He had a point, though....

+~+~+

It would be cruel of me to remark that Henriksen always timed his arrival at 221B to Mrs. Harvelle's baking days. It would also be one hundred per cent accurate. The dark-skinned man's eyes lit up as Cas cut him a generous slice of chocolate cake.

“I know I don't have to remind you gentlemen that my old friend would get into trouble if it ever emerged he had told me about the case”, he said. “But he thought, and I agreed, that it is just plain weird.”

“Go on”, Cas said.

“Have you heard of the Isle of Uffa?”

We both shook our heads.

“It's a small exclave of Huntingdonshire, next to the Isle of Ely”, he said. “No railway station, and my friend says they're still a world apart, even in this modern age. The 'isle' is just a few miles across and up, and only has one fair-sized village in it, Fenchurch Magna. Rivers and drains surround it, and the only way on or off is either by the single bridge that leads to Peterborough, or a ferry-boat across to the Isle of Ely. The squire is one Merioneth Fforbes; merry by name but not by nature, apparently. One of those alphas who is stuck in the Middle Ages, he says. The place reeks of history, and was once a hideout for the famous Hereward the Wake, after 1066.”

“An ancient place”, I said. Henriksen nodded.

“Mr. Fforbes owned a bejewelled hunting dagger, which was said to go all the way back to Hereward himself”, he said. “I doubt the truth of that, but it was kept on display at Hereward House, and Quinn said that when he saw it, it sure looked old. Then this Wednesday just gone, it was stolen.”

“Why was it not in the newspapers?” I asked.

“Because Fforbes was almost sure it had not left the area”, Henriksen said. “The house was being visited by a party of four guests, one of whom had expressed some interest in purchasing the item. If you were to take an interest in the case, I am sure Quinn would be grateful; I know he reads the doctor's articles. And”, he added with a mischievous grin, “it would get you out of the clutches of Mrs. Masters!”

Cas looked at me.

“A summer break in the Fens”, he said lightly. “Winchester, can you take a few days off work?”

“Luckily, I am still owed for all the extra hours I worked in winter”, I said. “I will ask when I go in today, and if they agree, hopefully we can go tomorrow.”

Before the wicked witch arrives, I added silently.

II

Twenty-four mercifully Mrs. Masters-less hours later, we were on a Great Northern Railway train out of King's Cross, headed for the town of Peterborough. Henriksen's friend Mr. Quinn had, we were told, arranged for a carriage to pick up us from there and take us directly to Fenchurch Magna, rather than have to take a second train and still face a length trip by road. After a tolerable journey of a couple of hours we reached the ancient town, and duly found the retired policeman waiting for us outside the station. The alpha was, I thought, surprisingly fit for someone of his age, and also completely bald. At least the sunlight glinting off his polished dome was a better sight than Lord Joseph's 'rug'! I felt instinctively towards my own thatch, which mercifully showed no signs of thinning. As yet.

Cas gave me a knowing look. The bastard!

“I was Victor's boss during his time in New York”, our host explained. “When he married Valerie and decided to come to England, I was about to retire, and chose to follow him.”

“Why the Fens?” Cas asked. “The United States is a wonderful young country, but I suspect most of its citizens think England starts and ends with London.”

“Valerie's sister Eunice married a beta from Fenchurch, a Mr. Josiah Netley, and they moved here”, he explained. “I came for a visit one time, and I just fell in love with the place. It's very parochial, but it's like living in a time capsule.”

“Have you told Mr. Fforbes about your bringing us in on the case?” Cas asked.

“I did”, Mr. Quinn admitted, almost reluctantly, “and he demanded to see you the moment you arrived. And bearing in mind how the Isle is, I am sure he will hear of your arrival within minutes!”

I nodded, though I wished he would have waited, as it was impossible to take notes in a moving vehicle. He noted my discomfiture and smiled.

“My notes as to what I have found so far are at your disposal, doctor”, he reassured me. “Though the case itself is beyond me. I should begin, perhaps, by explaining the peculiar situation here, and why I am involved in the first place.”

He sighed.

“The Isle of Uffa is technically part of Huntingdonshire, though it is detached from the rest of that county”, he began. “It is also subject to certain arcane laws, which lead the county constabulary to tread warily around Mr. Fforbes. Technically speaking, one of their constables should be investigating this case, but the last time they came to Fenchurch to investigate a crime, their heavy-handed approach upset several of the locals, and a lot of bad feeling resulted. When I offered to look into this matter, both the chief constable and Mr. Fforbes agreed that it might be for the best.”

“I see”, Cas said. “We must tread softly, then.”

“Indeed”, Mr. Quinn said. “Anyway, to the crime, which is the theft of the famous Hereward Dagger. On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Fforbes left early to go up to London on business. There were several financial papers which had to be signed as a matter of urgency, and he then planned to deal with some property matters before returning on Thursday. However, his property manager was called away by a family bereavement, so Mr. Fforbes returned home in the early afternoon of Wednesday the twenty-ninth, a day earlier than planned. In the absence the estate was run by his only son, Peter Fforbes, an alpha who by all accounts gets on well with his father. He is eighteen, just finishing his schooling and planning to go to university at Oxford.”

“Why not Cambridge?” I asked. “It's all but next door.”

“I wondered that”, Mr. Quinn said, “and he said he wanted the experience of living away from home for the first time. Cambridge would have meant a fairly easy commute from Fenchurch, even if roads in and around the Isle are poor.”

(I could vouch for that by the shaking we were getting as we bowled along. Cas had been very energetic in his wake-up call that morning, and the two-hour train ride had been bad enough. Thank the train company for the padded seats in first-class!).

“I should have mentioned that he was expecting four guests on Wednesday, all of whom were staying until the weekend”, he went on. “His son insisted however that he could entertain them in his father's absence, which would at most be for one day. By the time Mr. Fforbes returned, all the guests had indeed arrived, and his son had taken one of them to Cambridge for the day. Naturally the first thing the squire did was to go into the gallery to check on his dagger, only to find it had gone!”

“Dramatis personae?” Cas asked.

“Four, apart from Mr. Fforbes and his son. He has a second son and a daughter, by the way, but both are still at boarding school. Edmund Grice-Patterson, Member of Parliament for Ramsey and whose constituency includes Uffa, and is an old friend of his. He is forty-six, an alpha, and I think no more or less corrupt than most of the rapscallions at Westminster. Then there are his son Thomas, and his daughter Alice. The beta is twenty, and went to the same school as young Fforbes, to whom he is a close friend. The girl is nineteen, and very into women's rights, much to the discomfiture of just about everyone around her. Mr. Fforbes speaks of the desirability of her marrying Peter when he reaches twenty-one, but they appear to be just good friends.”

“And the fourth person?” I asked.

“That is where it gets interesting”, Mr. Quinn said, pushing his round spectacles up his stubby nose. “Mr. Rumbold Sully, a beta and a jewellery expert whom Mr. Fforbes has agreed – reluctantly, I suspect – to allow to examine the dagger. Or would have done, had it not been taken. As I am sure you know, the general opinion of experts thus far, even though none have been allowed to examine the dagger closely, is that is is most probably medieval at best. I should mention that Mr. Sully is quite rich, and it is he who has expressed an interest in purchasing the dagger. Though I am sure that Mr. Fforbes would rather sell the house first!”

“Intriguing!” Cas said. “Was there no security to protect this valuable antique?”

“Not in the conventional sense”, our host said with a smile. “It has been stolen twice before, but was returned on both occasions. I should probably have mentioned the Curse of the Hunted, which it is said was bestowed on the weapon by a local witch in Hereward's time. Should it ever leave the Isle or the family, something terrible will happen to the thief. You may look askance, gentlemen, but the last time it happened, the then-thief's two eldest sons both died within a week – both stabbed in knife attacks! I will show you both around the gallery when we get there.”

“Insurance?” I ventured.

“Mr. Fforbes does not believe in it”, Mr. Quinn said. “In this case, perhaps, I can understand. The item is irreplaceable.”

“Could someone from outside have done it?” Cas asked.

“That is unlikely. The Isle is accessed only by a toll bridge, which we are coming up to, or a passenger ferry – basically a row-boat - from Fenchurch Parva to Stepford, in the Isle of Ely. And the place is such that any stranger would be spotted immediately. Even in Fenchurch Magna, an incomer would stand out a mile, let alone in one of the five villages and hamlets.”

Our carriage rumbled to a halt as Mr. Quinn handed over a halfpenny to the clearly suspicious toll-collector, and we rumbled over the river and onto Uffa. I could see his point; even by the standards of this remote part of the country, the place seemed bereft of all human life. I could well imagine a Saxon renegade warrior hiding out here nearly a thousand years ago.

I caught Cas' amused expression, and blushed. Damn the man! He could read me so easily. Why did I put up with him?

A rut in the road gave the carriage a sharp jolt, and I felt a familiar pain in my backside. Oh yes. That was why.

+~+~+

Fenchurch Magna may have been the largest place on Uffa, but it was still little more than a village, with just a few shops, a post office, a high street with a strange kink in its main road about halfway along, and an oddly-proportioned if attractive large church.

“Parts of it are Saxon”, Mr. Quinn said, seeing me regarding it. “Perhaps if we have time, you can go and examine it more closely. We are coming up to Hereward Hall now.”

I looked at the approaching building, and was relieved to see it looked early Georgian. The current fashion for Gothic architecture frankly made me uncomfortable, as I always felt that it looked out of place in England. A footman was awaiting our arrival, and spoke immediately to Mr. Quinn, who then turned to us.

“Mr. Fforbes does wish to see us immediately”, he said, almost apologetically.

“That is why we are here”, Cas said comfortingly. “Let us go and brave the storm!”

III

I have to say that I did not take well to Mr. Merioneth Fforbes. He seemed torn between dubiousness at Cas' abilities, and outright hostility to the idea that I might write up the case at some future date. It was a tribute to my friend's abilities to soothe even the most ruffled feathers that he soon persuaded the man that nothing he undertook was ever published without the consent of those involved, or at least their close kin. Though I still felt him regarding me suspiciously at dinner. I was strongly tempted to take out my notebook, just to see if that would provoke him!

The jewellery expert Mr. Sully was not at dinner, since he was dining at the vicarage after looking over some of the church's old possessions, but the three young people were. Miss Alice Grice-Patterson was every bit as formidable as Mr. Quinn had made out, and expounded her feelings on women's suffrage to both Cas and myself. Forcibly. I was a little surprised that this did not evince a reaction from Mr. Fforbes, but I later learned from Mr. Quinn that the one time the two had clashed, she had got the better of the argument, and that their host had since held his fire.

Miss Grice-Patterson seemed much more interested in her political views than in sharing anything more than a polite word with young Peter Fforbes, who spent much of the dinner talking quietly with his friend. The boys were physically very similar, and I thought privately that Peter Fforbes did not look like much of an alpha to me. Like the latter's father, they too avoided engaging Miss Grice-Patterson on any political matters. The only difference between the boys, rather unfortunately, was that Fforbes was 'distinguished' by a most regrettable attempt at a moustache; either that, or something had crawled across his upper lip and died there!

After dinner, the three young people retired to the billiard-room, and Cas turned to our host.

“I think now might be a good time to visit the scene of the crime”, he said. “May we go to the gallery, please?”

Mr. Fforbes nodded, and led the way out of the dining-room, pausing only before unlocking the door to the gallery.

“Do you think the dagger can be recovered?” he asked, his voice almost breaking.

“The fact that the curse has not activated suggests it has not yet left the island”, Cas observed, which surprised me. I had not thought he believed much in superstition. 

Mr. Fforbes nodded, and led us into the gallery. The room itself was surprisingly well-lit, with a large central window overlooking the front of the estate. There were three display cases in the centre of the room, two large and one small. The small middle case, around which the glass had been removed, contained a pointedly empty purple cushion. Cas walked up to it, and frowned.

“The glass was not broken?” he asked.

“It was”, our host admitted. “I had it swept up. And there was a lock fitted to the glass cover.”

Cas nodded, and ran his fingers round the base of the cabinet.

“Who has access to the keys?” he asked.

“The cabinet and gallery keys are all on the main set, which I have with me at all times”, our host said.

“But you were away in London immediately prior to the theft”, Cas pointed out. “Did you leave the keys with your son?”

Mr. Fforbes' face reddened.

“I did”, he admitted, “but when I asked him, Peter admitted that he had left them downstairs for a time whilst he and Tom were studying in his room.”

Cas smiled. I knew that look. He was on to something.

“Is there a spare set?” he asked.

“Yes, but not together”, our host said. “Mrs. Parkes, the housekeeper, had keys to all the rooms but not the cabinets, whilst Arnesson, my butler, has the cabinet keys but not the room one. Mrs. Parkes allows the maids in to dust, but she always locks it after they finish. And she always checks round after they are done; she assured me that after the last cleaning, the dagger was still there.”

“How old is this house?”

Our host gaped at the apparent non sequitur.

“Pardon?”

“In what year was the house built, Mr. Fforbes?” Cas asked patiently.

“Early sixteenth century, but it was partly destroyed in the Great Fire of 1741.”

“And is the gallery part of the old building?”

“Yes, but....”

“Has it always been a gallery?”

Our host seemed to make an effort to pull himself together.

“This used to be a family chapel during Elizabethan times”, he said. “You will note that it affords an excellent view of the main approach road, which given the religious haverings of the time, was often useful.”

“Excellent!” Cas beamed. “I believe we may be able to bring this case to a successful resolution, even if the good doctor will in all probability be unable to publish it for some time.”

He strode from the room, and I scuttled after him.

+~+~+

I woke from a pleasant dream in which I felt strangely happy for no particular reason, only to realize that I was not alone in my room. Groggily I squinted up into a familiar pair of blue eyes.

Cas was leaning right over me. In bed. Surely not in someone else's house.....

“Come, doctor”, he smiled. “Breakfast is served!”

I nodded dumbly, as he swept from the room, hopefully fast enough to avoid spotting my blush. I had just remembered what in my dream had made me so happy.....

I squinted at my watch, then balked. What was Cas doing up and alert at this time of morning? Did they serve coffee in bed or something? Or was it indeed the apocalypse?

+~+~+

We sat down to a delicious breakfast – copious supplies of crispy bacon, which probably explained Cas being up – and the seven of us were joined by both Mr. Sully (a short, dark man whom I instinctively mistrusted) and Mr. Quinn. We were still eating when our host arrived. I could see at once that he was not in a good mood.

“What happened?” Mr. Quinn asked.

Mr. Fforbes sank heavily into his chair.

“Someone took Courtland's rowing-boat”, he said morosely. “They've left the island!”

I saw at once the implications of the theft. If someone had taken the dagger and hid out for a while, they had now gotten away. Finding them would be almost impossible. Our host took a coffee, but waved away food, looking totally dejected.

That was, until the end of the meal when a maid hurried into the room, curtsied to our host, then whispered something to him.

“What the hell?” he yelled, before shooting up and racing out of the room. We all followed as quickly as we could, to the gallery to find our host staring incredulously at the scene before him. There, in the centre of the room, was the small display cabinet with the purple cushion. And on the cushion was what was undeniably a small hunting-dagger.

IV

Mr. Fforbes beckoned Mr. Sully forward, and the expert gently lifted the weapon and examined it thoroughly before replacing it gently onto the cushion. Then he nodded at our host. As if by magic, Arnulfson appeared next to his master holding a large glass of whisky, which Mr. Fforbes downed in one shot. Then he looked sharply at Cas.

“Can you explain this?” he demanded.

“I can certainly tell you how they got in and out”, he said.

“How?” our host demanded.

Cas walked over to a corner of the gallery, and pressed what looked like an ordinary-looking panel. Except when he did so, it slid back to reveal an opening.

“A priest-hole!” I gasped.

“Rather more”, my friend said. “The Fforbeses were still Catholics at a time when the country was turning Protestant, and they had a system of escape passages put in just in case.” He turned to our host. “I am sure this leads outside, sir, but would you care to notice that there are definite footprints both coming and going. That was how the thief gained access to the room. You will also notice how smoothly the mechanism operated, which indicates that it has been used recently.”

“But why did he return it?” Mr Fforbes demanded.

“Possibly the curse?” Cas said. “Maybe they ventured over the bridge at night, something terrible happened, and they wisely chose to return it. As to the identity of the thief – well, now it seems that they came from the outside world, it could have been anyone.”

I was sure I felt a slight shift from someone in the group behind me, but I could not identify who it was.

“Well, I have my dagger back”, Mr. Fforbes said. “This calls for a celebration. Drinks, everyone.”

+~+~+

“You know who it was, don't you?” I said, as our carriage rolled away from Hereward Hall the following day.

He nodded.

“An unconventional crime, in one sense”, he said. “The motives were certainly.... different. But I spoke to the thief – if I may call them such - and I am certain the crime, if there ever was one, will not be repeated.”

“Mr. Sully?” I asked. He shook his head.

“Peter Fforbes”, he said.

“But why?” I demanded. “He will inherit it one day. Why would he take what is virtually his own property already?”

“For the person he loved”, Cas smiled. “A foolish dare; if you love me enough, you will go into Cambridge with me and the dagger.”

“Well, that can't be”, I said petulantly. “He told us he went into Cambridge with Thomas Grice-Patterson, not Alice.”

Cas looked at me knowingly, and I only slowly realized that he was willing me to get it. And I did.

“Oh. Oh!”

“Mr. Fforbes should have been careful what he wished for”, Cas said wryly. “His son and heir is indeed in love, though not with the Grice-Patterson he suspects. I only hope they will be more discreet than when they were at dinner that night. Their pointedly moving a set distance between each other every time someone looked at them was one of the things that alerted me to that possibility.”

“But the priest-hole?”

“I spoke to the boys this morning”, Cas explained. “We went to the gallery, and Peter Fforbes went into and out of the priest-hole a couple of times to give the impression that someone had used it. He was the obvious thief, after all.”

“How?” I asked.

“Remember that the glass was broken?” Cas said.

I nodded.

“I looked at the locks on the other two cabinets”, Cas said. “Even the most infantile thief could have cut away one of those locks easily, and lifted the glass off. But he had to smash the glass, otherwise suspicion might have fallen on the key-holder. Fortunately that, coupled with the priest-hole, clearly implied that it was an outside job.”

“Clearly!” I said.

“The boys wish to go to Australia together, once Peter's brother William comes of age, and can inherit the Hall”, Cas said. “And the curse of the dagger remains, which in this scientific age can only be for the good.”

“Young Mr. Fforbes aside, I could never publish this case”, I said ruefully.

He leant forward, and took my hands in his.

“Perhaps some day, the world will be more accepting”, he said. “Though I suspect alpha-beta relationships will be one of the last bastions to fall. Let us hope we shall both live to see it.”

I smiled. He kept hold of my hands all the way to Peterborough Station, to which I had no objection. On the train journey back though, he did rather more than just hold my hand!

+~+~+

Our next case would take us just across the Thames to Camberwell, where I would see the truth about that old adage that those who live by the sword usually die by it. And Cas would solve a case by winding - or trying to wind - a dead man's watch.....


	4. Case 31: Time After Time (1887)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished, but referred to as the case where Cas solved a mystery by winding a dead man's watch. And my most sincere apologies for the title; in a moment of horizontal weakness, I allowed Cas to choose it!

I

This was a most unusual case, and it was with some regret that I was unable to publish it at the time. Once again, the involvement of a lady – a completely innocent party, I must add – meant that I had to merely document the case, and wait for (ironically in this instance) the passage of time. Fortunately the lady's subsequent return to Italy and some scurrilous newspaper speculation around her daughter's marriage led to her writing to me and asking me to put the true facts of the case to the public – a case in which a dead man managed to name his own killer, and Cas solved a case by winding up a watch.

+~+~+

Number Twenty-Seven, Golden Hind Avenue was a fairly standard Victorian house in one of the better areas of Camberwell, just south of the City. There had lived in relative harmony the recently-married Mr. and Mrs. Martin Franklyn, along with two lodgers, Mr. Lucian Willis and Mr. Albert Wales. But no more.

I learned of this case from my fellow doctor Hiram Bullivant at the surgery, as he was visiting a patient nearby at the time and stopped to offer his services to the police who, very wisely, decided that the sooner after death that the body was examined, the better. He discussed the case with me and Peter Greenwood the morning after, just before we opened the surgery.

“It was all very sad”, he said, pulling at his long (and, I thought, rather pretentious) beard. “They had only been married three months, then Mrs. Franklyn comes home from a shopping expedition, and finds her husband lying dead in the living-room. The police suspect it may have been a contract killing by one of those infernal secret societies, probably an Italian job. Bloody Eye-ties!”

I smiled to myself. Though half-American, Doctor Bullivant was often more xenophobic than most Englishmen!

“Why do they think that?” Peter asked.

“There was some weird symbol on the floor”, he said. “Nearly stepped on the thing before the constable stopped me. Sort of like a percentage sign, but more ornate. And the shooting was execution-style, right in the middle of the forehead. The poor man probably had to stand there and see it coming.”

“Murder in Camberwell”, I sighed. “It is a rough area.”

“Golden Hind Avenue is one of the better parts”, Bullivant said. “I doubt they will ever find the blackguard who did it. Odd, though....”

He stopped. We both looked at him.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I'm just being stupid”, he said dismissively. “It was nothing.”

“Tell us”, Peter insisted.

He hesitated again, but gave in.

“I mentioned it to the coppers there”, he said. “That living-room was the tidiest place I have ever seen in my entire life! You know how day-to-day living means there's usually clutter of some sort or other around a place; papers, magazines or nick-knacks? Gertrude is always moaning about what a pig-sty our place is. This room was spotless, as if it had just been professionally cleaned. And I don't mean by a maid, because they only employ a girl for a few hours each day, and she had been in, dusted, laid the fires and left. I mean really, incredibly tidy.”

+~+~+

I mentioned the case of the overly tidy room to Cas when I got home that evening, to a wonderful meal of bangers and mash. Mrs. Harvelle had excelled herself again, bless the woman! As I looked round our own room, I was reminded just how right Bullivant had been. Even allowing for Cas' haphazard (non-existent) approach to order, the room was pretty much a mess, with books and paraphernalia all over the place. This was how most people lived.

But not, apparently, the Franklyns.

“I shall contact Henriksen in the morning, and see if he can obtain an introduction to the local sergeant”, Cas promised, sinking into his chair with a heavy sigh. He had just had an after-dinner bath, and smelled faintly of whatever bath salts he was currently favouring – lemon and lime, I thought.

“Problems?” I asked.

He fixed me with a look.

“Mrs. Masters finally called”, he said heavily. 

Oh.

“And your received her?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even. 

“I thought it better”, he said. “She seemed determined to persist in her efforts, so it was right to tell her exactly where we stood in relation to each other.”

“I see”, I said, relaxing a little.

“So I am taking her out to dinner on Friday”, he said.

Years of withholding information from patients stood me in good stead at that moment in my life, and I managed to do little more than blink once or twice.

“You are doing what?” I yelled.

All right, perhaps a little more than blinking. Cas looked at me, apparently nonplussed at my reaction, before I saw that slight smile creasing the corner of his mouth.

“You are having me on!” I protested.

He chuckled.

“Your face!” he laughed. “I thought that my doctor was going to need a doctor!”

I pouted.

“Right!” I grumbled. “That does it. I am not putting out for all next week!”

I should have known better. He sighed, and stood up.

“Then it looks like I shall just have to sleep alone”, he said mournfully. “Ah well.”

And the bastard promptly shrugged off his robe right in front of me, standing there gloriously naked. He walked slowly to his room, then stopped in the doorway.

“Coming?” he asked cheekily.

God, Sammy was right. I was so whipped (though when my evil little brother made made that remark in a letter recently, I had replied by suggesting that we did not favour whips, but that Castiel did possess a set of handcuffs he had obtained from Henriksen which were not for use on criminals! He had telegraphed me back a one-word reply, 'ew!'). I pouted again, but got up and did not run after him. It was just a fast walk that got me to his bed first, and I threw him down on it, determined to have at least some revenge. I did not even try to start taking my own clothes off, but went straight for his cock, which was already half-hard. 

I am ashamed to say that I did to Cas exactly what he so often did to me, massaging his cock with both hand and tongue whilst holding a firm grip to the base, to prevent him from coming. The sight of the cleverest man in London reduced to a moaning wreck was thrilling, but although I knew he easily had the strength to break free of me, he did not.

“Dean!” he groaned.

“Tease me, would you?” I snapped, nibbling up the underside of his impressive length before licking a path up to his nipples, which I knew from experience were even more sensitive than mine. “I'll show you.”

“Not bad for an old man!” he countered, and I retaliated at once with a gentle bite on one nipple, before making a path to his lips and taking him in a deep kiss. He was panting heavily, and I knew that for medical reasons if nothing else, I should not delay the inevitable for much longer. Yet I revelled in one last moment of power before suddenly releasing his cock and whispering, “come!”

He erupted so forcibly that his ejaculate hit my chin with a splash, and I felt the force as he finally obtained his release. His breathing slowed back to normal, and I wiped both of us down before laying beside him. It was a little odd with me still fully clothed and him totally naked, but the sight of that glorious man more than made up for that.

“That was, as you say, awesome!”, he praised. “I am going to have to do that more often.”

I scowled, and grabbed his tender cock again, casing him to yelp in pain.

“You dare!”

The bastard sniggered. I hated him!

II

The next morning I woke alone. I was initially put out, but then I saw that there was a single red rose in a vase next to my bed when I awoke. I smiled at it, and rose to get ready.

Cas returned, and after a hot breakfast (and a thank-you kiss that made his eyes go dark with desire) we set out for Camberwell. Our guide to the scene of the crime was Constable Frederick Flint, a fresh-faced young alpha who was ridiculously tall (did they grow these constables in fertilizer?) but good-natured enough. Henriksen had warned us that, whilst Sergeant Auburn had no objection to Cas taking an interest in the case, he was not going to put himself out to help. Flint was only there as he was the local bobby, and had also been the first man on the scene.

I could see immediately what my fellow doctor had meant about the living-room. Apart from the rolled-up rug, on which the red stain of the deceased was clearly visible, it was spotless. It was indeed too tidy, I thought.

“I became involved through Mrs. Branch at Number Twenty-Nine, next door”, the constable said. “She and her husband were visiting their sister in Chiswick all last week, and they had arrived back to find the postman had left them a note saying there was a letter waiting there that needed to be signed for by a 'Mr. Wiles'. She presumed, correctly as it turned out, that someone had written the number either untidily or incorrectly, and that it was for one of the lodgers. She told me about it on her way to inform Mr. Franklyn, and as his bank is near the post office where it had been taken, he called and signed for it as the house owner.”

“I am surprised the post office handed it over”, I said. I had had dealings with our Baker Street branch of that organization, and to call them overly fussy would be like describing the Atlantic Ocean as moderately damp. They had made me feel like a criminal, and all that effort had only obtained for me a poorly-addressed bill.

“Mr. Franklyn returned home that evening”, the constable continued. “At half-past five; we know the time because he called in on Mrs. Branch to thank her for telling him about the letter. She later recalled that he had seemed rather upset, though she thought that was because of the quarrel with his wife.”

“They did not get on?” Cas asked.

“He wanted to have children immediately, whilst she wanted to wait a couple of years”, he explained. “Otherwise, Mrs. Branch – I should probably not say it, but she is the sort to hold a glass to the wall to listen in – would surely know.”

I smiled at that.

“Mr. Franklyn apologized for the mix-up”, the constable continued, “and said it was because the sender was foreign. They wrote one of them foreign sevens with a line through it, and the postman must have read it as a nine. Mrs. Franklyn was from foreign parts, you see.” 

Another insular Englishman, I thought with a smile.

“Mr. Wales was already home at this time, but Mr. Willis did not return until half an hour later, according to their statements”, the policeman said. “Mrs. Branch, who was not spying on them in any way, shape or form, was able to confirm Mr. Willis' time of return as she had been in the front garden at the time. Mrs. Franklyn was attending a church event at the local homeless shelter, and did not return home until just after eight; she says she heard the town clock striking the hour as she came down the road.”

“She did not take a cab?” I asked, surprised.

“She and a friend, Mrs. Gale, took a cab that dropped her off at the end of the road. Her friend lived at Number One, so it was easier for Mrs. Franklyn to get out with her rather than be driven a few dozen yards. It was not dark yet, and this is a safe area of the town.”

At least it was, I thought.

“Mrs. Franklyn entered the house”, the constable continued, “and almost immediately found her husband lying dead in the living-room. He had been shot, a single bullet to the centre of the forehead.”

“An execution”, Cas muttered. The policeman nodded.

“That, and the weird mark on the floor suggests as much”, he agreed. “One more thing. Mrs. Branch says that she saw Mr. Franklyn again in the back garden not long after his return, possibly only five minutes after. She thought he might be picking some flowers for his wife. She only mentioned it because she knew he disliked gardening, it being more his wife's passion.”

Cas nodded, and I noted that he was staring at the mantle-piece above the fire. It housed two frankly ugly green-and-white decorated bottles, a brass bell, a cigarette-box and a glass vase containing some tall herbs.

“He picked herbs for his wife”, Cas observed. “An ddd choice.”

“She had a herb garden out the back”, the constable explained. “I thought that might be why the fire was lit in summer, you see. There's a paint factory in the next street, and sometimes it smells a bit. Burning scented stuff makes the room smell better, so my missus says.”

Cas seemed to think about this for some time.

“I would like to see the body of the dead man”, he said at last, “if that is at all possible.”

Constable Flint grinned.

“My sergeant doesn't think much of your work, sir”, he admitted, “but he knows that you always deal fairly with the police, wherever you go. We can see the late Mr. Franklyn now, if you wish.”

III

Martin Franklyn had been a good-looking young beta, I thought sadly, cut down in his prime. The constable shuffled his feet nervously behind us, and I decided there was little more to learn here before leading the way out of the room.

“Doctor Bullivant said he thought something was off about the room, sir”, our host said as we trooped into a small room. “Too clean, he thought.”

“Ransacked by a thief with a tidiness fetish!” I muttered.

“That may not be too far from the truth”, Cas said mysteriously. “Tell us more about the four people who lived there, constable.”

Constable Flint flipped open his notebook.

“Mr. Martin Franklyn, twenty-seven, beta, a junior manager at Pettigrew's Bank near St. Paul's”, he said. “His employers say he was a conscientious worker, which was why he achieved promotion at so young an age. Last year he was selected to accompany the general manager, a Mr. Bruce, over to Italy, where the bank was looking to establish an office. It was whilst he was there that he met Miss Anna-Maria Fiori, who worked as a teller at the bank that Pettigrew's was looking to buy.”

“Did the deal go through?” Cas asked abruptly. The constable looked surprised at the interruption, but checked his notes.

“No”, he said eventually. “Mr. Franklyn paid an unannounced follow-up visit four months ago, and found certain irregularities on the Italian bank's balance sheets. That was also when he persuaded Miss Fiori to accept his hand in marriage, and they returned to England together; they had been in communication with each other since his first visit. They were married a month later. Their financial situation was a little precarious, which was why they decided to take in two lodgers.”

“Tell us about them”, Cas urged.

“Mr. Albert Wales moved in two and a half months ago”, the policeman said. “He is forty-eight, a beta and walks with a limp due to a childhood injury that has never fully healed. He works as a clerk at Lloyd's Bank; it has dealings with Pettigrew's, which was how Mr. Franklyn met him. He has the larger of the two back rooms. He is incredibly timid. I swear when I was questioning him about the murder, I thought at one point that he was going to faint!”

“Mr. Lucian Willis moved in two weeks back. He is thirty-one, an alpha visiting London for a time 'on business'. Quite what that business is, he declined to say, but his name has come up at the station in connection with a tobacco smuggling operation out of the docks. I had the impression – and I may be doing him an injustice here – that Mr. Willis was not overly surprised at his landlord's murder. He said that perhaps he upset the Cosy Noster whilst he was in Italy.”

I suppressed a smile at the constable's mangling of the Italian language.

“Is it possible to speak with Mrs. Franklyn?” Cas asked.

“Of course”, the constable said. “She did say to visit her and ask questions anytime, and I am sure she would not mind answering any questions you may have.”

+~+~+

Mrs. Martin Franklyn had moved into her sister-in-law's house for a couple of days, and it was there, in a horrendous Gothic monstrosity in Brixton, that we met her. She answered our questions readily enough, but there seemed to be nothing new to be learnt from her. Until finally Cas asked her if there was anything she might care to add herself. She hesitated just fractionally before saying no, and both of us saw it. My friend gently pressed her to tell us.

“It is probably nothing”, she said, “but there was the odd matter of dear Martin's pocket-watch.”

“What about it?” Cas asked.

“He had two watches”, she explained. “The one he wore, that I purchased for him in Italy, and a second much older one that he inherited from his grandfather, which was quite valuable. He always kept that one locked in his writing-desk, and never wore it in public, not even for special occasions. But when the constable handed me back the things he had on him when they took the... him away, it was his grandfather's watch that was in his pocket.”

“But not on his chain?” Cas pressed.

“No, sir.”

Cas thought for a moment.

“Do you have the other items that were found on him?” he asked.

“They are still in the bag the policeman gave me”, she said, shuddering at the memory. “I left them at the house. I did not want.....”

“We fully understand”, Cas cut in. “Madam, it may be important that we see those items and those watches. May we please have permission to enter your house and examine them?”

“Of course”, she said, opening her reticule and extracting a small key. “This opens the main draw in the centre of my husband's writing-desk.”

“I am surprised he did not keep something so valuable in a safer place”, I observed.

She smiled at me.

“It was safer than you think”, she explained. “You have to take the draw most of the way out, and press a small knob halfway along the left-hand side. That opens a tiny secret compartment directly to the left of it. His grandfather's watch was always kept there.”

“Very clever”, Cas said, taking the key. “Thank you for your patience at such a difficult time, madam. We shall of course keep you fully apprised of our findings, should there be any, and I shall make sure this is returned to you as soon as possible.”

We bade our farewells and left.

+~+~+

I was somewhat surprised (and not a little worried) when Cas asked me if I had thought to bring my revolver (I had). Since Cas wanted to meet the two lodgers at the house and it was still early afternoon, we went to my favourite little restaurant in Trafalgar Square for a late lunch, and after spending some time in the National Gallery, returned to Camberwell just before six. Constable Flint was in the kitchen talking to the two lodgers, and I thought Cas was going to question them, but he seemed to change his mind after only a few seconds, and after a brief aside with the constable, hurried me into the living-room. 

We found Mr. Franklyn's secret compartment easily enough, although my hands were too large to reach the knob, and Cas had to stretch to activate the secret compartment. Inside was an ordinary pocket watch and a winding-key. I was about to reach forward when Cas stayed my hand.

“Observe”, he muttered.

I looked but I only saw a watch and a key. 

“What?” I asked.

“The dust”, he said.

I looked again, and then I saw it. The watch lay at one end of the tiny draw, whilst the mark it had left in the dust protruded beneath it. Clearly it had been moved, and recently.

Cas took both items out and added them to our pile of the late Mr. Franklyn's belongings which, apart from the house keys (which Mrs. Franklyn had kept and had shown us) and the two watches, consisted of the following:

A wallet, containing one pound, nine shillings and sixpence farthing.  
A receipt for a tie, purchased from a store in London.  
A laundry bill, marked 'paid'.  
A handkerchief, initialled with a letter 'M'.  
A notepad, empty, with a small pencil.  
An old train ticket, return to the City, clipped.

“It is not much, for a human life”, I observed.

Cas nodded, and looked thoughtfully across at the fire, to where the dead man had laid. And I saw the light come on in his eyes.

“What?” I demanded.

He shook his head, and picked up the watch and winding-key that had been on the dead man. Carefully, he tried to wind the watch.

The key didn't fit.

“But why?” I asked. “Unless that is the key to the other watch?”

I took the key from him, and tried it in the newer watch. It fitted perfectly. I wound it a little, and then took it out, waiting for the watch to start up again.

Except it didn't. I stared at it in confusion. Cas smiled knowingly, and pulled out his pocket-knife, using it to gently lever the back of the newer watch open. Inside was a small, folded piece of paper. He extracted it, read it, and then leant over and whispered something to me.

I nodded.

IV

We were back in the kitchen.

“Gentlemen, thank you for sparing me some of your precious time”, Cas smiled at the two lodgers. “I am pleased to tell you that the killer of Mr. Martin Franklyn will very soon be arrested.”

Mr. Wales blinked in surprise at the news, although Mr. Willis seemed to take it more calmly.

“Excellent!” the taller man beamed. “Who was it?”

Cas had walked round the table at this point, and was behind the alpha lodger as he spoke. Without warning, he suddenly had a pair of handcuffs on the shocked man, just as I took out my gun and pointed it at him. The man stared, then chuckled.

“I think you will find that English courts need something called evidence, Mr. Novak”, he said silkily.

“I have it”, Cas smiled. “The best evidence there is. A note from the doomed man saying that you, Mr. Lucian Willis, were about to kill him.”

Mr. Willis wrenched at the handcuffs, but they held firm.

“You lie!” he spat out.

Cas took a chair. I knew he enjoyed these moments of revelation, but he always earnt them.

“Mr. Franklyn knew he was doomed from the moment he saw the letter that had gone astray”, he said. “I do not know what he did, but what is important is that he upset someone in Italy who had the power to have him killed. From the delay, I believe that the man ordering the killing could not be one hundred per cent sure of Mr. Franklyn's complicity when he arranged for you to become a lodger here, but that he knew confirmation, one way or another, would shortly be his.”

“Once you were installed, the plan was for you to execute your target upon receipt of that confirmation”, Cas continued. “But untidy writing caused the letter ordering you to strike to go astray, and the machinations of Providence meant that it chanced to fall into the hands of Mr. Franklyn. He suspected that you were the killer, as he knew for a fact that Mr. Wales here had never left England, whilst the purposes of your stay in London are somewhat mysterious. He also knew when he saw that letter that his time in this world was short. His only thought was to make sure that his killer – you - paid for your crime.”

“Of course, he has a problem. Very soon there will be a second letter ordering you to kill him, and he cannot hide forever. Even if he disposes of you, someone will be found tot ake your place, and they may even target his wife. However, if he tries to leave any sort of message indicating your guilt, he knows that you will find it. So what does he do? He goes gardening.”

“What?” Constable Flint exclaimed. Cas nodded.

“That was the first clue”, he said. “The herbs in the vase looked like ordinary herbs to our killer here, but they are in fact thyme - an indication as to where he planned to leave his letter accusing you, Mr. Willis. He then swaps over the two watches – but not the winding-keys – and places the accusatory note in the mechanism of the newer watch, which he artistically replaces in the draw in such a way what will indicate it has been recently moved. He hopes, correctly as it turned out, that it might be noted that he wore 'the wrong watch'. Finally he leaves the letter for you to find, and prepares to meet his Maker.”

“You duly find the letter, and Mr. Martin Franklyn meets his end calmly. It is then you make your other mistake. Fearing that he may have been forewarned, you search both him and the room thoroughly. You were wise enough to leave on his person the detritus most men carry around with them, but in searching the room you make a point of replacing everything where it should be, and dusting away any possible prints, as it would be unlikely for you to be in that room. The attending doctor was quite correct when he remarked that the room felt almost too clean. You checked his watch thoroughly, but did not find anything – for the letter accusing you was folded into the back of his newer watch hidden in his secret compartment. 

The cuffed man snarled at him. Cas produced the folded piece of paper that he had extracted from the watch and read it. 

“'Lucien Willis killed me. Signed, Martin Franklyn.' You were quite correct, sir; English courts do indeed demand a high level of proof before they dispatch someone to the gallows. But I think a signed note from the victim might just meet those demands.”

+~+~+

Postscript: It should be added that, perhaps predictably, Mr. Willis did not make it to the gallows. Whilst being held in prison before his trial, he was stabbed to death by another inmate in an apparently motiveless attack. His employers had obviously decided that they dare not risk his talking to save his life. Thus those who live by the sword so often die by it.

+~+~+

In our next case, Cas once again demonstrated once more that he was first and foremost an emissary of justice, and not necessarily the law....


	5. Case 32: Unforgiven (1887)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished; mentioned elsewhere as 'the scandal at the Tankerville Club'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Trigger warning: This story contains references to a suicide, which happens off-story.

I

There were times when I felt truly sorry for Mrs. Harvelle, our illustrious landlady. The rag-tag assortment of humanity that came to her house to seek the services of the capital's greatest detective must often times have sorely tried even her infinite patience, but she never complained (although it should be added that Cas and I paid a good rate for our rooms and always on time, unlike some of her other tenants). So when she met us returning from lunch at a nearby restaurant one Saturday in early autumn, I wondered what cross-section of humanity had descended upon our rooms this time.

“There is a young lady to see you, gentlemen”, she said. “A very young lady, around sixteen I would judge. She says she has travelled all the way from Cheltenham to seek your services.”

“We had better not keep the young lady all the way from Cheltenham waiting, then”, Cas said. “Mrs. Harvelle, would you please be so good as to send up some tea and cakes? Our guest must have dined in her travels, but I am sure she would appreciate some refreshment.”

She nodded, and returned to her rooms, whilst we mounted the stairs.

“How do you know she has dined?” I asked curiously.

“Consider the time”, he said. “Two to three hours for the journey if she set out early, which was likely, so she would arrive in London around eleven at best. Since she may have conjectured that we ourselves might be out to lunch, she would therefore take the time to dine herself, and hope to catch us on our return. Which she has done.”

“She could have left early”, I pointed out.

“Not bearing in mind that she has obviously come from the renowned Ladies' College in that spa town”, he said.

“You cannot know that!” I protested.

He turned and fixed me with those impossibly blue eyes.

“I am psychic, then, doctor”, he said dryly. “That, or unlike your good self, I observed the college hat on the hat-stand when we entered.”

Smug bastard, I thought, as I followed him up the stairs. He would pay for that later!

+~+~+

Mrs. Harvelle had been right about our guest, who can have been little more than sixteen years of age. As well as a small reticule, she had the day's newspaper in her hand.

“My name is Miss Elizabeth Forester”, she said in a melodious voice, “and I have come down from Gloucestershire to see if I can obtain your services, Mr. Novak. I should say at the start that I have little in the way of funds with which to recompense your efforts, but I hope you will at least hear me out.”

Cas smiled.

“As I am sure you are aware”, he said, “I take cases for a variety of reasons, only one of which is the financial. If your case is of sufficient interest, then we shall see what we shall see.”

She nodded.

“Have you read the newspaper today?” she asked.

“The doctor has, I am sure, read the social pages”, he remarked slyly, moving out of swatting range. I scowled at him.

“It is a story from those pages that brings me to your door, sir”, she said. “The scandal at the Tankerville Club.”

“I did read it in the newspaper you have there”, I said, ignoring the slight cough from a certain blue-eyed genius who wasn't getting laid (or laying) any time soon. “Major Jeremiah Prendergast stands accused of cheating at cards. A most serious accusation.”

“My family live opposite the Prendergasts in the town of Lee, in Kent”, she explained. “The major's son, Nathaniel, is the same age as myself, and attends Merchant Taylors School. We basically grew up together.” She hesitated, before ploughing on. “I should tell you that is fully my intention to marry him when he comes of age.”

I blinked at her forthrightness. 

“Does he concur with your plans?” Cas asked politely.

“He does”, she said. “We write each other weekly, but his letter did not arrive yesterday as usual. I had thought it might be a delay in the general post, but a telegram arrived last night with news of the scandal. He is of course devastated.”

I saw immediately the hidden meaning in her words. If such an accusation stuck to the Major, then his son too would, however unfairly, be also tarnished. It was cruel, but it was the way of the world, and it would make our charming visitor's plans to marry young Prendergast all but impossible.

“This would be a very difficult investigation, Mr. Novak”, she said. “From what I have read, the Tankerville Club is one of the most secretive clubs in London, and since Nathan himself is not a member, I doubt you will be able to gain access.”

Cas seemed to hesitate.

“I do not wish to predict the worst”, he said gently, “but have you considered the fact that the Major might actually be guilty in this matter?”

“Absolutely not!” she said, almost angrily. “He is a lovely old man, and such a thing would be beneath him!”

I smiled inwardly at her vehemence.

“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Cas asked.

“I intended to travel onto Lee and hope to catch Nathan there”, she said. “I shall then spend the night at my parents' house, and return to college late tomorrow. In case you were wondering, I have alerted my form tutor as to my plans, and she gave me her full support, which went so far as to arrange a lift to the station for me.” 

“We will accompany you, then”, Cas said firmly. “We shall take this case.”

She looked surprised at her success, the smiled in relief.

II

The Prendergast and Forester houses lay close to the railway station in Lee, and Miss Forester had not bought a bag with her, so we took a train straight down. On the way, Miss Forrester made a confession.

“I understand that you need all the facts for your investigation, Mr. Novak”, she said, “so I am going to tell you something. This is not the first time that Major Predengast's family has been involved in such a scandal. Though given the way of the world, I am sure that others will rush to apprise you of this fact.”

“Pray continue”, Cas said politely.

“Six years ago, his nephew Reuben was accused of cheating at cards at a club in India”, she said. “It later emerged that the accuser had himself planted the marked cards in his jacket, an act seen by a native servant who only later came forward. The nephew was totally exonerated, but you know how newspapers are. They are bound to say that it runs in the family, that there is no smoke without fire....”

“All the old canards that sell copies”, Cas said wryly. “That may be important information. Do you happen to know what happened to the accuser?”

“No”, she said, “but Nathan would know.”

Cas nodded, and we resumed what little remained of our journey in silence. On reaching Lee we went to the Major's home first, and were admitted by a dour-faced servant who told us that the Major was staying at a friend's house in London, but that the young master was home. 

We had barely sat down when Nathaniel Prendergast entered. I try to avoid judging by first impressions, but I have to say that I liked the boy at once. Despite the heavy load that had undoubtedly fallen on his shoulders of late, he held himself erect, and had an open, honest face. He was also clearly both surprised and happy to see his near neighbour, and greeted her warmly. Though when she introduced us by name, I saw a guarded look on his face.

“Eliza, dearest”, he said quietly, “is this wise?”

“We must have the truth, Nathan”, she said firmly. “Your dear papa cannot live his life under a cloud of suspicion and poisonous whispers, nor can you. Mr. Novak and Doctor Winchester can find the truth for us. Please?”

She gave him a beseeching look that was almost Sammy-esque in its injured puppy status, and I could see him fold beneath it. Impressive. 

“I shall go across and inform my parents that I am here for an unscheduled weekend”, she said, “and you can tell our friends as much as you know.”

“Barrett is coming over any time now”, he told her. “Lieutenant Barrett Easton, from my father's old regiment, and one of the men there when it happened. Have dinner with your parents, dearest, then come over later and talk to me later on.”

She kissed him in a sisterly fashion, then left us. The door had barely closed behind her before the bell was ringing, and a few moments later Lieutenant Easton was admitted to us. He was an alpha in his mid-twenties, with eyes almost as blue as Cas' and a shock of untidy fair hair. Introductions were made, and we all sat down, dinner being not due for another half an hour.

“This is very bad”, Lieutenant Easton said frankly. “I do not want to think the worst, Nathaniel, but facts are facts.”

“Facts may be misleading”, Cas said crisply. “Pray, sir, tell us exactly what happened on the day in question. Omit nothing, no matter how trivial it may seem to your good self.”

Thus prompted, the soldier began his tale.

“Major Prendergast, myself, Lord Franks and Mr. Sweynson meet every Tuesday at the Club for a set of rummy”, he said, sipping the drink our host had poured for him. “Each of us takes a turn to bring cards and chips.”

“Why not use the Club's own?” I inquired.

“One of the rules of the building is that they are not allowed to supply anything that could be used for gaming”, the young man explained. “Rather odd, as there is no ban on betting or anything, but when the building was left to the Club as a bequest about thirty years back, that was one of the conditions. On this night Lord Franks supplied the chips and the Major the cards.”

“Tell us about the other two players before you go any further, if you please”, Cas said. 

“Lord Franks is about sixty, and very pro-military”, the Lieutenant said with a smile. “He sits in the House of Lords, and often speaks up for greater military spending. He is a good friend to the Major, and lives in Chislehurst, not far from here.”

“And Mr. Sweynson?” Cas asked.

The soldier hesitated.

“He is a businessman who has several properties in the Lee area”, he said. “He lives in one of them, although I do not know which one. I believe he did make an offer to buy the Major's house, but that offer was refused as he wished to knock it down and replace it with smaller houses for commuters.”

“Motive”, I muttered darkly. Cas smiled at me.

“Always the cynic, doctor”, he chided, before turning back to the lieutenant. “Tell us who arrived at the Club and at what time.”

“I only know that Mr. Sweynson and Lord Franks were in the room when we arrived”, he said. “The Major and I came at virtually the same time; we doffed our coats and joined them.”

“Then you did not travel to the club together?”

“No, sir. He came from the barracks and I from the Gallery.”

Cas frowned at that for some reason. 

“Did any of you leave the room at all after your arrival?” he asked.

“Sweynson and I both used the water closet, but that is a dead-end room off ours. No-one else left until I dropped a card and noticed markings on the back when I picked it up. God, I wished I had kept my mouth shut!”

“Miss Forrester was kind enough to tell of of a scandal surrounding a cousin of yours”, Cas said to Mr. Prendergast. “I believe over a similar event?”

Our host groaned.

“Eliza should not have mentioned that!” he grumbled.

“Someone was bound to”, Lieutenant Easton put in. 

“Can you tell me anything about your cousin's accuser?” Cas asked.

“A Lieutenant Maudit, who took his own life when his lies were finally exposed”, Mr. Prendergast said bitterly. “And good riddance too.”

Cas frowned.

“You do not happen to know if this man came from Northamptonshire, by any chance?” he asked.

Our host stared at him in surprise. 

“Yes", he said. “That was his county regiment. I suppose that was how you guessed.”

Cas never 'guessed'. He knew something, I was sure.

“It happened in British India”, the lieutenant said. “It made quite a few ripples at the time. Sorry though I am to say it, Nathaniel, but your detective friend should know the truth. Army opinion was that the whole thing was a whitewash, and your father used his influence to get his nephew cleared. That was wrong, of course, but that was what most people said. It did not help that poor Reuben got killed barely a month later in a native uprising, which just made people talk about kismet and other tosh.”

“Do I not know it!” our host said sourly.

We were interrupted by the arrival of a servant, who whispered something to out host that caused him to excuse himself for a moment. As soon as he was gone, Cas leaned over to the soldier. 

“There is one further matter I would value your opinion on, Lieutenant”, he said with a disarming smile. I flinched inwardly. He always used that tone just before a major strike. 

“Of course, sir”, he said.

“Your true opinion on Miss Forester.”

He looked like he had been shot, and though he strove to cover it up, we had both seen it.

“She has an Understanding with Nathaniel”, he said, sounding almost angry. “She does not know how I feel, and if you are both gentlemen, you will endeavour to keep it that way!”

We were precluded from any further conversation by our host's return. One look at his face told us he had not received good news. He was as white as a sheet.

“What is it?” Lieutenant Easton asked anxiously.

Our host sat down heavily on his chair, and stared blankly into the fire.

“That was the police”, he said at last. “Father just blew his brains out at Ronald's house. He's dead!”

III

Cas rose slowly to his feet.

“This has now become a murder investigation”, he intoned gravely. “Doctor, you and I must go to the Tankerville Club as a matter of urgency.”

“They will not admit you”, the soldier said flatly. “Do you wish me to come...?”

“They will when I tell them the alternative”, Cas said grimly. “Mr. Prendergast, my sincerest apologies on your bereavement, but if we are to apprehend the man responsible for your father's death, we must move quickly.”

Our host seemed to come to his senses.

“You think he may flee the country?” he asked.

“I wish this matter dealt with”, Cas said simply. “The sooner the better. The doctor and I will return here when we have news. Good day, sir.”

He bowed, and swept from the room. I followed as quickly as I could.

+~+~+

Lieutenant Easton had been right about our reception at the Tankerville Club; it was about as cold as the Arctic Ocean. Two large footmen almost immediately tried to usher us out, only to be sent backwards by punches from Cas. For a small man, he could deal a heavy blow.

“Unless your employers wish the bulk of the capital's constabulary to fall on this building”, Cas said firmly, “they will permit a short visit.”

A smartly-dressed man hurried out from a back room at all the commotion, and introduced himself as Mr. Paul, the day manager. Once it was made clear that Cas merely wished to talk to the cloakroom attendant who had been on duty that night and then see the scene of the crime, he grumpily acquiesced, and we were shown into a small side-room. Some little time later, a balding but smartly-dressed beta wearing the club uniform entered. 

“Julian Drake, sir”, he said. “You wished to see me?”

Cas gestured for him to sit down.

“I wish to ask you something, Mr. Drake”, he said, his voice low and menacing, “but before I do, it is only fair that I impress upon your good self the seriousness of the situation as it stands this evening. Major Prendergast committed suicide earlier this afternoon, so what I am now investigating is a case of murder. I am sure I need not remind you of the important of accuracy in such a case. Judges, in my experience, can take a dim view of people whose memories are.... less than perfect.”

The man was already sweating, I noted.

“I have just one thing to ask of you”, Cas said, “but I need you to answer it fully. Every single little detail; nothing is too unimportant. I wish to know exactly what happened when the four people in that room arrived at the Club that day. Exactly what happened, sir.”

Mr. Drake nodded, and thought hard.

“Mr. Sweynson arrived first, sir, but I don't remember the time.”

Cas smiled reassuringly.

“The time itself is probably not important, but I will need to know roughly how long it was between each person's arrival.”

The attendant nodded.

“Mr. Sweynson had a long back coat, foreign I think”, he said. “He was carrying it when he came in, and handed it over straight away. He took his ticket, and went into the club. Lord Franks arrived about ten minutes later, maybe fifteen. I was doing paperwork at the front desk, and I am fairly sure the clock across from me only struck one quarter-hour. He had a brown wool coat, very wet as there was then a heavy shower outside. He was quite cross, and I had to call him back for his ticket.”

“The gentlemen do not come into the cloakroom itself?” Cas asked.

“They can, sir”, the attendant admitted, “but they rarely do. If they want something, they usually come to the counter and ask for it. Some of the older members like to get their own things, but I have to admit them by raising the counter. There's no way in otherwise except by the back door, but that was locked. I checked afterwards, and Mr. Paul had the key all day.”

“Interesting”, Cas said, pressing his long fingers together.

“Lieutenant Easton and Major Prendergast arrived together, about ten or so minutes after Lord Franks”, he went on. “The lieutenant handed me his coat – a thin light brown raincoat, rather poor quality - then he took the major's black military overcoat and gave me that. He waited for the tickets whilst the major went on ahead, but he had to call him back, as the old man had forgotten the cards.....”

His voice faded, and he looked puzzled.

“When the lieutenant handed you the coats, his was dry but the major's was wet”, Cas said.

I feared the man was about to have a heart-attack. He stared at Cas in shock.

“That's right!” he said, clearly aghast. “I remember I thought it odd, because they came in just as the rain stopped. But how could you know that?”

“When the major took the cards from the lieutenant, did he pocket them?” Cas asked, evading the question.

The attendant frowned with the effort of remembering.

“No”, he said at last. “He was carrying them when he entered the room.”

“Did Lord Franks bring the chips?” I asked.

“That I don't know, sir. But he did have a small case with him apart from his coat, so they may have been in that.

“Excellent!” Cas beamed. “You have been most helpful, sir. Now if you would kindly show us to the room in question, we shall conduct the business we need to conduct there, and then never darken the doors of this place again!”

IV

Cas saw the manager again before entering the scene of the scandal, and obtained a key from him so we would not be disturbed. I did not see why that was necessary – surely the club members could read a 'keep out' sign on the door? - and walked around the room. It was singularly unremarkable, a single other door leading to the water-closet, a window that needed cleaning, a card-table at one end of the room and a billiard-table at the other. I was surprised, therefore, when Cas' first action after locking the door was to stride across and close the curtains. At least, I was surprised until I saw the predatory look on his face. I gulped in anticipation.

“Trousers. Off. Now!” he growled. 

I hurried to obey, although I noted to my chagrin that he was not undressing at all, just removing his tie, then whipping out his impressive length and slowly stroking it as he watched me fumble with my trousers. Once I was free, he manhandled me over to the billiard table and laid me out onto it, pushing my legs up into the air.

“This place displeases me!” he growled. “So I fully intend to show that displeasure by taking you on one of their billiard-tables!”

I swallowed, but almost immediately he had the tie wrapped round my head, gagging me. That was probably wise; due to the isolated nature of our rooms in 221B I had taken to being very vocal during sex, knowing how much it turned my lover on. Not that he needed turning on. Especially now.

I was prepared for his scissoring me open, but I got the surprise of my life when I felt his finger joined by his tongue, shorting out all the fuses in my brain. I uttered a silent prayer of thanks for the gag, as I was moaning bitterly into it and he quickly got me prepared, before I felt the familiar warmth of his cock head at my entrance. A brief burst of pain and he was in, and this time he slid in fast, his balls banging up against my backside as he took me on the table. I grabbed the edge with both hands and held on for dear life.

Time had ceased to exist for me, but I could feel an orgasm approaching, only for something cold and metallic to clip into place at the base of my cock. I could not believe it. He had put a cock-ring on me! The bastard! Then he erupted inside me, and I very nearly broke the ring as my cock strained against it. I whined into the gag, and I lost my vision for a moment as I strained. When it returned, Cas was no longer there.

What?

“Now, doctor?”

I pulled myself up, and swallowed hard. He had got his own trousers and underwear off, and was in the same position I had just been in, only at the other end of the table. I gathered what little remained of my wits and hurried over to prepare him, only to find he was already open. Rats!

“There is a small lock at the base of the ring”, he said, apparently quite unruffled to my intense annoyance. “Turning it releases the ring, but only do that once you are inside me.”

Belatedly, I got it. I could hardly have come all over the billiard-table without alerting the Club to what we had done. I was inside him in a flash, and after fumbling for the screw for what seemed like an eternity, I found it and managed to release it. I duly erupted inside my lover; he normally maintained his composure during sex, but this time even he let out a little moan. I was quite proud of myself for that.

+~+~+

We cleaned ourselves up and made sure there was no signs of our love-making before escaping outside, where it was drizzling. I had thought we would hail a cab back to Kent, but Cas was eyeing a small coffee-shop across the street.

“Wait here just a moment, doctor”, he said, before dashing over the road and into the building. I sighed. Coffee at a time like this. Honestly!

However, I had seemingly misjudged him. He emerged just moments later, smiling.

“Sometimes the long shots pay off, doctor”, he said mysteriously. “We must return to Lee, and set poor Mr. Prendergast's mind at rest!”

“How did you know about the dry coat?” I asked, as he hailed a cab.

“The lieutenant's coat had to be dry”, he said, as a cab stopped for us. “It was the only possibility.”

I wished I could see why, but he said nothing, as we soon crossed the Thames and were headed back to Lee.

+~+~+

I was, as with everyone else, to be kept waiting a little longer, for no sooner had we arrived at the Prendergasts' house than Cas asked if he might have ten minutes to attend to an urgent matter. I wondered if he was going to send a telegram, but I heard no-one being summoned to the writing-room, so the matter remained a mystery. Until after barely ten minutes he joined us. Miss Forester had been across earlier, but had returned home for the night, it now being dark.

“This has been a most unusual case”, Cas said, holding what looked like a letter in his long hands. “Fortunately it is now solved, although the matter of actually ensuring justice may be a little complicated.”

“How can it be complicated?” Mr. Prendergast asked. “If my father did not cheat, someone else did. What is not black and white about that?”

Cas looked at him almost sorrowfully. He paled.

“You are not telling me that my father did actually cheat?” he gasped.

“I am not telling you that”, Cas said. “What I do have to tell you, however, is still painful.”

V

He turned to the lieutenant.

“You killed him, sir”, he said, his voice ice-cold. “As surely as if you had driven a knife into his stomach, or shot him in the chest. You are responsible for the death of Major Jeremiah Prendergast, and you alone.”

The lieutenant went deathly pale.

“Is this some sort of joke?” he managed.

“I will tell you why you did it”, Cas said, “then I will tell you how. A search of the army records will reveal that Easton is not your real name. You changed it on joining the army, the reasons for which were, pure and simply, revenge.”

“Poppycock!” the lieutenant blustered.

“It is unfortunate for you that I am well acquainted with the atlas of England”, Cas said. “In the fair county of Northamptonshire there is a charming little village called Easton Maudit. Lieutenant Patrick Maudit was your brother, and when he took his own life after his attempt to smear a rival officer backfired, you held Major Prendergast responsible, even though it was totally your brother's fault. Reuben Prendergast was beyond your reach, but you would have blood for blood.”

“Lies!” the lieutenant snapped, though he had gone very pale.

“You took the name of the village that, long ago, took its name from your ancestors”, Cas went on. “Barrett Maudit became Barrett Easton, working his way up through the army intent on only one thing – the destruction of Major Jeremiah Prendergast. And when you found his son was dating an attractive young girl, you acquired yet another motive for your dark deeds. You knew she would never look at a lowly lieutenant when she could have a major's handsome son – but if that son's name was blackened beyond repair, then he would have to withdraw, leaving the field open to you. I dare say you did not foresee that your actions could lead the major to take his own life, although I doubt you would have cared anyway.”

“You knew that the four of you took it in turns to bring things, so you waited for a week in which the major brought the cards. On that fateful day you arrived at Hope Street much earlier than you told us, and seated yourself in a coffee-shop opposite to await your target's arrival. I have to tell you that the waitress remembers you, lieutenant, and I am sure her description of you would stand up in a court of law. She also described you as waiting for someone to appear outside, and how you rushed out quickly, almost knocking someone over in your haste.”

The soldier put his head in his hands and groaned. Mr. Prendergast stared at him in shock.

“It was that waiting that gave you away”, Cas went on. “Lord Franks and the major were both caught in a heavy shower which, by pure chance, stopped the moment you stepped outside the restaurant. Had you been walking there from your house and overtaken the major in the street as you claimed, your coat would have been as wet as his was. Yet the cloakroom attendant confirmed that his coat was wet and yours was dry.”

“Four weeks earlier, you had taken great care to notice the sort of playing-card that the major brought when his turn came around. You had an identical deck in your own pocket – except yours were marked! Then all you had to to was make sure the major asked you for the cards whilst both coats were in your possession. And, of course, to drop a card later in the evening and make the fateful comment, drawing attention to the marking.”

“You bastard!” Mr. Prendergast ground out. “I should kill you here and now!”

“Let us not complicate things by having you accused of murder”, Cas said consolingly. “I have a somewhat better resolution.”

He unfolded the piece of paper he had been holding and placed it on the table.

“This is a signed confession”, he told both men. “Lieutenant, you will sign it, then Mr, Prendergast, the doctor and I will all witness it.”

The soldier looked at him warily.

“And?” he asked.

Cas looked at him darkly.

“Twenty-four hours from now, I shall hand this document over to the relevant authorities”, he said firmly. “What you choose to do in the meantime is your own business, lieutenant. Regretfully I doubt that a jury would convict you of murder, though equally I am sure you do not need me to tell you that certain social ruin awaits if you stay here. The decision is yours.”

The soldier stared balefully at us, then grabbed the pen and signed his name without even reading the document. Before the rest of us had signed our own names, he was gone from the room, and we never saw him again.

+~+~+

I would have liked to conclude this story by saying that Lieutenant Easton did the decent thing and blew his brains out, but sadly that was not the case. Once Cas had handed his confession in, the police called at his house, to find he had sold up and fled. Inquiries at the docks elicited the fact that a military man had paid for a last-minute berth on a crossing to the Continent, but the trail went cold, and the world heard no more of the 'unintentional' killer of Major Jeremiah Prendergast.

Oh, and Nathaniel Prendergast did marry Elizabeth Forester. The day after his twenty-first birthday. She sent us both a slice of wedding-cake, which was nice of her.

Some time later, Sammy asked me why I smiled at the sight of a billiard-table. So of course I told him.....

+~+~+

Our next adventure would involve a certain Mr. Bert Stevens who was both innocent and guilty....


	6. Case 33: Trial And Error (1887)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished, mentioned elsewhere as the case of Bert Stevens.

I

Of the manifold cases that Cas and I undertook, there were were a number where his resolution did not precisely adhere to the letter of English law. However, as he himself often said, he was an agent of justice first and the law second, and if the two clashed, he would always choose justice. Few cases demonstrated that better than that of Albert Stevens, a man who went to the gallows for a crime he did not commit, yet was surely as guilty as sin. Naturally I could not publish this case at the time, for as the actions of Cas (and to an extent, myself) were technically unlawful. I only ask that the reader empathizes with us, and considers what they would have done in a similarly impossible situation. Justice and the law are not always bedfellows, and the country needs agents of both to keep it true and righteous.

+~+~+

It was October, and I was feeling depressed by the grey autumn weather. Our adventure in Reigate ('Out With The Old') was being published in the Strand magazine; to my annoyance I had had to do extra work on it the previous month after the magazine editor's replacement whilst he was on holiday sent me a 'corrected' copy with so many basic spelling and grammatical errors that I had winced, and had had to virtually rewrite the whole thing again. 

It was Sergeant Henriksen who brought the Stevens Affair to our notice, albeit reluctantly. He had called round to report on a minor case that Cas had advised him on, but had seemed unusually preoccupied.

“Something is troubling you, Henriksen”, Cas observed.

The dark-skinned policeman looked up ruefully from his coffee.

“That obvious?” he grunted.

I only narrowly bit back the remark that he had barely looked at the sponge cake Mrs. Harvelle had provided. Even a non-detective like myself could put two and two together over that one!

“It's the Stevens case”, the policeman admitted. “The man goes to the gallows on Friday, and.... damn it, my gut says he's innocent, even though all the facts say he's guilty as sin!”

Cas cut the sergeant a large slice of cake and placed it on the table next to him. He did not immediately start devouring it. Damnation, this was serious!

“I think you had better start at the beginning”, my friend smiled. “Winchester read the article to me from yesterday's paper, but I dare say viewing it without the distorting prism of the average London journalist will throw a whole new light on the affair.”

Henriksen sighed heavily.

“It goes back several months, to the case of Major Rupert Stevens”, he began. “He was in the Buffs, serving out in Malaya. There was an attack by some local rebels, and he was one of the men captured. His men got him back, but there was a suggestion, fanned by a statement from one of the natives, that he had gone willingly, and even been instrumental in arranging the attack.”

“Desertion?” I asked, horrified. “But why would he do that?”

“No reason was given”, Henriksen said. “He was coming up to retirement, and the regiment was almost at the end of its service there; besides which army rules meant that he could not be sent out to that part of the world again. The man who made the allegations against him was one of his own men, a Sergeant Sean Mallow. Stevens was court-martialed, found guilty and dishonourably discharged.”

“I take it there is more?” Cas asked. Henriksen nodded.

“Subsequent revelations suggested that the court had been less than fair”, he said. “One of the three judges - or whatever they call them - was Colonel Phineas Mallow, the accusor's father, and it also later emerged that Sean Mallow was up for promotion against Major Stevens' own son Albert, a sergeant in the same regiment. The charge ruined Albert Stevens' chances; he resigned from the army, and accompanied his father home. But – and here's the clincher – young Albert was at the court, and swore in public that he would have justice, one way or another.”

I swallowed. This sounded ominous.

“Apart from Colonel Mallow, the two other judges were also colonels, Eustace Fairfax and William Montacute-Hambdon. The Buffs got back two weeks ago, September the twentieth, and two days after that Colonel Mallow was shot and killed in his own house. No-one linked it to the court-martial at the time – until two days later, when Colonel Fairfax was shot and killed the same way. In both cases a sprig of lavender, which is the symbol of the Buffs, was left next to the dead body.”

“Rather odd”, Cas said. “Almost as if Albert Stevens was proclaiming his guilt.”

Henriksen nodded.

“Naturally we suspected Stevens, but getting a case against him proved all but impossible. He didn't have alibis for the times of the two murders, but he'd been clever; no-one had seen him enter or leave the buildings, and although we checked all the guns at his house, none had been fired recently.”

“Unless he was hiding the actual murder weapon”, I said. 

“Then last Saturday, the thirtieth, we got lucky”, Henriksen continued. “Or luckier than Colonel Montacute-Hambdon, who was shot and killed at his own house. Again the lavender, but this time we found something else – a button off Albert Stevens' shirt underneath the dead body. Better still, the colonel's house is almost opposite the local pub, and two of the local coppers were outside having lunch. They saw someone come out of the grounds next door, but when they later questioned the owners, they said no-one had called at the house.”

“Why next door?” I wondered.

“There's only a low wall dividing the two properties”, Henriksen explained. “Presumably Stevens vaulted it in case he was spotted leaving the colonel's house. His bad luck we had some men on the spot.”

Cas thought for a moment.

“Was Stevens questioned over the first two murders?” he asked.

“He was”, Henriksen said. “Mallow's house is in the same street at his fellow colonel's, and it was one of the constables who found the body who questioned him. Smith, I think his name is, and the other one is Turlow. Fairfax lives in Essex somewhere.”

“A button and a distant sighting do not seem much to hang a man by”, Cas said. 

Henriksen grinned.

“When they took him in for questioning a second time, Stevens had a button missing from his shirt”, he said. “Not only that, but the buttons had been tailored with the design of a sprig of lavender. They were almost unique. And again, he had no alibi. Saturday was the day he always went fishing alone down the canal, and no-one saw him.”

Cas frowned.

“I do not see the problem”, he said.

Henriksen sighed.

“Three things”, he said. “First Stevens denies murdering Colonel Montacute-Hambdon, despite the evidence. I've been in the game long enough to have a sense of when someone's lying, and my gut says that, despite all the evidence, he's telling the truth. And then there's Miss Montacute-Hambdon.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Penelope Montacute-Hambdon, the colonel's only daughter”, he explained. “She came to me on Sunday, and told me that her father had wanted to find Colonel Stevens innocent, but had been outvoted. Courts-martial do not announce whether the decisions they reach are unanimous or majority, but her father wrote to him immediately after the hearing to tell him. I challenged young Albert Stevens on this when I met him yesterday, and he not only admitted that he had received the letter, but told me where the key to the drawer in his father's writing-desk was kept so I could see it for myself. I did, and there it was."

I could see his point. That letter would mean the accused would have had no motive to kill the third member of the court.”

“Is there another reason for your suspicions, apart from your gut?” Cas asked.

“Yes”, Henriksen admitted. “The first two deaths were normal shootings, across a room. In both cases there was no-one in the house close enough to hear the shots. But Montacute-Hambdon was shot close-up, the gun held right against his chest. Now, the house had servants and people in it, but the difference between the two methods... it worries me for some reason.”

“Who benefits from the three deaths?” I asked.

II

“You're thinking killing two to hide a third murder, aren't you?” Henriksen said. “Hiding a leaf in a forest. Mallow owned a considerable estate, which all goes to his army son Sean. He decided to buy himself out of the army, and live off the fat of the land instead. He is an unpleasant piece of work, in my opinion, and he has no alibi for the other two murders. Plus, of course, he killed for a living.”

“Colonel Fairfax had no children, so his estate was divided equally amongst five cousins, a few thousand each at most. Montacute-Hambdon is the most interesting, and I only know this because the solicitor contacted the local police as soon as he saw what had happened. The colonel made a secret will dividing his property equally between his son Darren and his daughter, but neither of them knew that. And Darren Montacute-Hambdon is a bit of a rake, and has huge debts. He would have expected to inherit everything.”

“Is the estate large?” Cas asked. 

“Even if he'd inherited the lot, probably not enough to support him for more than a few years, with his record”, Henriksen sniffed. “But as it is, what he gets will barely clear his debts. This is all off the record, of course. Miss Montacute-Hambdon does not know yet, and will not until the will is officially read. I wish I were at the reading to see their faces!”

“You can rely on our discretion”, Cas said. “The case seems quite straightforward.”

Henriksen stared at him.

“You think Albert Stevens did kill the third colonel?” he asked.

“I think your gut feeling is quite accurate”, Cas smiled. “But we have less than seventy-two hours until Mr. Stevens meets his Maker, and has to account for his actions in the one court that cannot be rigged. We must move quickly. Doctor, can you be free this afternoon?”

I had been supposed to go into work that afternoon, but clearly this was more pressing.

“If I can send a telegram in to let them know, then yes”, I said, not missing the way my friend's eyes lit up at that.

“In that case”, Cas smiled, “you should meet back up with us again tomorrow afternoon, Henriksen. Hopefully we shall have something to tell you. Besides”, he added mischievously, “Tomorrow is a coffee-cake day.”

+~+~+

Unfortunately the surgery, whilst they were willing to let me have the afternoon off, asked that I come in that morning to attend to one of their richest (and fussiest) clients, Lady Drinkwater. I was annoyed, as the Strand magazine had just been delivered to the house, and I looked forward to checking the final installment of 'Out With The Old' for any last-minute inaccuracies that may have crept back in. I left Cas reading it – he had of course checked the story anyway – and told him I would get lunch whilst out, and would be back by one at the latest.

In fact I made it back by half-past twelve, only to find that Cas had gone out. However, Mrs. Harvelle assured me that he would be back soon, as he had only gone to the clothes shop some way along Baker Street. I wondered why Cas had decided to shop for clothes at such an odd time, but poured myself a coffee and sat down to wait for him.

The moment he came through the door, I new something was wrong, especially when he locked it behind him.

“What's up?” I asked.

He looked at me darkly.

“I read your latest story”, he said, and that was not the Sex Voice but his Command one, the one I knew better than to disobey. Though I knew that I was not the omega in this relationship, there were times when Cas absolutely had to be in charge, and it pleasured me to make him happy at those times. Now, however, he looked far from happy.

“Your description of me in the final part of the story”, he said, sounding gravely displeased. “You called me 'little man'.”

I tried to remember, hoping that it had been just another error by that damnable replacement editor, but no such luck. I had used those words when I had rewritten the piece, and had not shown them to him. Oh Lord!

“I am not pleased, doctor”, he said gravely. “I think you owe me.”

Now this was looking up, and my cock twitched with interest. 

“What did you have in mind?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from going up an octave higher than usual.

“Take off your trousers and underwear.”

All right, I could do that. I stripped, feeling a little odd that I was fully clothed above the belt yet naked beneath it, my cock increasingly hard. He nodded, and reached into the bag he had brought in with him.

Hell, no!

He had obviously been into the omega section, for what he produced was a pair of frilly red panties, with a white lace trim. They were even in my size! I stared at him in horror.

“Cas”, I protested. “You wouldn't!”

He knelt down before me and spread the panties open on the floor. I tried a last pleading look, but of course it had no effect. Sighing, I stepped first one and then the other foot into them, and he slid them slowly and teasingly up until they were at my waist. They were.... surprisingly comfortable.

He leaned closer and whispered into my ear.

“Here's the deal. You have to wear these all day. If you can make it back here without having an orgasm, then you can do what you want with me tonight. But if you come...... you're mine!”

I whimpered. He placed my trousers on the floor, and I almost fell over my feet in my haste to get into them. Even with them done up however, I still felt that I had a huge sign above my head stating what I was wearing next to my skin. The silk and lace rubbed against me, and I felt close to coming. I had not even moved yet. 

This was so bad.

+~+~+

It got worse.

III

I followed Cas outside and he hailed us a cab.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Mortlake”, he answered.

“Mortlake?” I almost shrieked. “But that's an hour away!”

A whole hour, with silk and lace rubbing against my skin every time we went over a bump. Cas was really trying to kill me!

“Where Colonels Mallow and Montacute-Hambdon lived”, he said. “Amongst others.”

Annoyingly he would not answer any more of my questions, and we made the (painful) journey to Surrey, crossing the Thames in a sharp shower of summer rain which, mercifully, concluded as we reached our destination. I got out and stretched my legs, which was a mistake as I immediately felt the lace rub against me. I was strongly tempted to find a toilet and obtain release, the bet be damned, but of course Cas had other ideas, and I scurried after him, my muscles complaining. Which they should not have been doing at the age of thirty-five.

The two colonels had lived in a quieter part of the town. Still, the tavern ahead of us appeared to be doing a roaring trade, although the recent shower had cleared the outside benches. Cas went inside and ordered lunch – I could trust him to do that, whereas Sammy would always try to order us both salad! - and soon we were ensconced on an outside table, with food and beer. On a very rough bench which did not really help my situation!

The food was finished when two police constables went into the pub, and came out with their own meals and drinks. One was blond and rather reedy, whilst the other was dark, shorter and frowned a lot. Both were very obviously alphas, and had the sort of arrogance which, regretfully, sometimes comes with power. The blond policeman had his right arm in a sling, which made eating difficult, I noted.

Cas said nothing until we had finished our drinks, and did not seem inclined to leave. Eventually the two policemen finished, and the barmaid came out to clear their table.

“One of your local policemen is injured, I see”, Cas observed conversationally.

She turned and eyed him critically, and I felt a surge of protectiveness towards my friend. She was at least ten years older than him, and getting on for twice the body weight, but she was still eyeing him like he would make a tasty meal. My throat tightened.

“That's Mark Turlow”, she said. “He got that dealing with a burglary last month; fell down a fire-exit, would you believe? Should be out of it by next week, though.”

“All in the line of duty”, Cas smiled. 

“You just down here for the day?” she asked. “'Cause we have rooms, you know.”

She was quite clearly offering much more than just a room. I snapped.

“We are heading back now”, I said, a little too forcibly as I stood up (a mistake, as the silk rubbed against me and I all but came there and then). Cas looked surprised, but followed me away from the pub, even as I all but ran to the roadside to hail a cab.

“Are we done here, doctor?” he asked quietly.

I blushed.

“I just wanted to get away from her and those come-hither eyes”, I said, a little petulantly. “Her sort are only after one thing!”

The knowing smile on his face only served to increase my discomfiture. Fortunately he changed the subject.

“I have all I need to complete the case”, he said, and now he sounded almost rueful. “Though as so often, extracting and delivering justice will be.... difficult.”

“I have faith in you”, I said, before I could stop myself. I wondered silently if I should open my mouth wider, so I could get the other foot in whilst I was at it.

He smiled at me, and hailed a passing cab for us. The ride back to Baker Street was silent, but it was a strangely comfortable silence. Unlike my nether regions, which were screaming for release. And it was most unfair of Cas to stop for some totally unnecessary shopping on the way back.

I made him pay for it later, though!

+~+~+

The following day, Henriksen called round as promised. Clearly either he was still feeling off-colour, or he was eager to find out what if anything Cas had learned, for a slice of coffee-cake went almost untouched by his tea.

Almost. This was Henriksen, after all.

“What did you find out?” he asked eagerly.

Cas hesitated.

“I would like to ask you a question”, he said slowly. “What is your personal opinion of the two constables who found the body, Smith and Turlow? Be assured that it will not be repeated outside these four walls.”

Henriksen was clearly surprised at the question, and had to think for a moment.

“Only what their own sergeant, Woolston, told me about them”, he said. “Turlow is ambitious and wants promotion, whilst Smith is, he suspects, marking time until something better comes along. Their beats are next to each other, and Turlow got his injury during a burglary a short time back.”

Cas nodded at that.

“And your gut feeling still says that Albert Stevens did not kill Colonel Montacute-Hambdon?” he said.

Henriksen nodded. 

“Was Stevens searched when he was questioned at the station in Mortlake?” Cas asked.

“Both times”, Henriksen smiled. “Of course his lawyer got all uptight about it, but they always do.”

“Who searched him?” Cas asked.

Henriksen had to consult his case notes, which Cas had asked him to bring.

“Turlow and Smith did the first time”, he said. “Stevens lives just over the river in Chiswick, you see. They found nothing. The second time, the lawyer was there, and he insisted Sergeant Woolston examine the clothes in his presence. Woolston took them into another room, but he found nothing else.”

“Did you check if Mr. Darren Montacute-Hambdon had an alibi?” I asked.

Henriksen nodded.

“Not for the first murder – he was at home all day – but for the second he was visiting a friend in Barnet, and they swear he stayed there all day”, he said ruefully. “He was at home when his father was murdered, but in the outside greenhouse, and says he heard nothing. I went there myself, and he may be telling the truth; it backs right onto the river, and I don't think I could have heard anyone inside the house, let alone in the study which is round the other side.”

“Friends can lie”, I muttered.

Cas sighed heavily and, to my surprise, looked at me.

“I do not think the good doctor will be happy with what may result from what I about to tell you”, he said to Henriksen, “but your gut feeling was quite correct. Albert Stevens did not kill Colonel Montacute-Hambdon.”

“But the lavender!” I objected.

“It was that particular herb which suggested the identity of the real murderers”, my friend said.

“More than one?” Henriksen exclaimed.

IV

“Constables Smith and Turlow”, Cas said.

There was a stunned silence before Henriksen found his voice.

“Impossible!” he snorted.

Cas leaned forward. 

“When the two constables took Stevens in for questioning the first time”, he began, “they already knew the fundamentals of the case against him. He had motive enough to kill the men who had so cruelly misjudged his father. However, after the first death, anyone outside the case would assume that he would then kill the other two colonels. The constables did not know at the time of the letter showing Montacute-Hambdon had demurred at the sentence, which you yourself told us only came to light when Stevens was questioned after the shooting.”

“Stevens first kills Mallow, the architect of his family's ruin, on the fourteenth, and naturally he is brought in for questioning. I think Turlow was the driving-force behind this, and his friend went along with it because that, after all, is the police way – protect each other at all costs. Turlow expected that Stevens would strike at the other two colonels, but he also knows that the man is, after all, a trained killer. It is highly unlikely that he will be caught.”

“He plans it well. During the search of Stevens' clothes at Mortlake Police Station, he rips off a distinctive button for use later. He is fortunate that the house of Colonel Montacute-Hambdon is on his beat, so he keeps an eye on it for when the attack happens. He is also lucky in that the colonel is away for a couple of days, and Stevens chooses to eliminate Fairfax as his second victim, on the sixteenth”

“But then there is a complication. Stevens does not strike at his third victim. Time drags on, and it becomes clear that, for whatever reason, Montacute-Hambdon is to be spared. That does not suit Turlow at all; his future promotion prospects hinge on a successful arrest of a guilty killer on his patch. The colonel must die.”

“He gets hold of Stevens' statement from the second murder, and sees an opening. The man had no alibi because he always goes fishing in a quiet spot by the canal near his house every Saturday. So he will have no alibi for the coming weekend. The long delay between the second and 'third' murder is irritating, but he hopes it will go unnoticed.” 

“On the Saturday, Turlow and Smith go to Montacute House, and are of course admitted. Smith shoots the colonel with the same type of gun that they know Stevens possesses, a sprig of lavender is left, and the button is placed underneath the body. There was, as you yourself said, scorching around the bullet wound. That would have only happened if the killer had been exceptionally close to the colonel, and the only people he would allow to do that would be either family or someone apparently trustworthy. Like, say a policeman.”

Henriksen shook his head in disbelief.

“How do you know Smith shot him?” he asked.

“Turlow has that arm injury”, Cas explained, “and from the way he was struggling when we observed him, it was clearly his principal arm.” 

I slid a glass of whisky next to Henriksen's tea, and he downed it gratefully. Then he looked at us, his eyes hardening.

“This means Albert Stevens is going to the gallows for a crime he did not commit”, he said quietly.

Cas looked meaningfully at me.

“True”, he said, “but the alternative is that he evades going to the gallows for two crimes we know that he did commit. And there is always the possibility that he confesses at the last.”

Henriksen was looking at me too, now.

“What?” I asked, shifting uncomfortably.

“You are the English conscience”, Cas said quietly. “If you say that this must go forward, then a murderer will walk free. If you decide to say nothing, then he will be hung for a crime he did not commit. The difference between justice and the law is sometimes a wide one, my friend.”

“You are putting this on me?” I exclaimed.

“Novak trusts your judgement”, Henriksen said. “As do I.”

I sighed. It wasn't just Henriksen who needed a stiff drink.

+~+~+

“I am glad that I can always trust your judgement”, Cas said later, as we sat reading on the couch. 

I smiled, but said nothing.

“You are wearing them again, are you not?”

I stared at him in shock. How on earth...?

“You carry yourself slightly differently when you wear them”, he explained. “Silken ladies' panties. You, Doctor Winchester, are a very naughty man!”

I smirked.

“Says the person who bought them for me”, I pointed out.

“Then it's a good thing I got more than one pair”, he said blithely, flicking down his belt and affording me a brief glimpse of black lace. Yes, he was trying to kill me through sex. And I was fully prepared to let him keep trying!

+~+~+

Albert Edward Stevens went to the gallows at nine o'clock on a breezy Friday morning. There were no last-minute appeals or reprieves, but he did leave a signed letter admitting to the first two murders, whilst repeating his denials as to the third. Based on the information Cas had provided, Constables Turlow and Smith were subsequently charged with gross misconduct in a public office – Henriksen grudgingly conceded that there was little chance of their being convicted of murder – and were forced to quit the service. Turlow left the country for British Canada, whilst Smith sank into London's low-life and was never seen of or heard from again. 

+~+~+

The object Cas was called to find in our next case was decidedly unusual. And decidedly huge!


	7. Case 34: Phantom Traveller (1887)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously published as 'Silver Blaze'.

Author's Note: although this was one of the original stories published in both the Strand magazine and in book form, readers will discover that the resolution to the case in both those publications – namely that Cas refused to explain exactly why the lost item reappeared when and where it did – is explained fully here for the first time. Fortunately the passing of the decades means that those who wanted revenge on the people who humiliated them so publicly have since passed on.

+~+~+

I

In our many years together, my friend Cas was often called upon to find objects which had been either lost or stolen. These were generally small things, although in this case, the item was somewhat larger than usual, if not the largest thing that Cas had ever been called upon to locate.To wit, a forty-two ton Great Eastern Railway steam locomotive! 

This case began not long after the capital was finally winding down from the celebrations for Her Majesty's Golden Jubilee. Naturally, every town in the country was eager for a royal visit that great year, but even our dear queen could not be everywhere at once, and around this time of year she always made a point of being in Scotland, beloved country of both her and her late husband. Before leaving, however, she agreed to visit the new museum marking the Roman occupation in the Essex town of Chelmsford. It was matters arising from that trip, and the Great Eastern Railway's untimely 'loss' of a large railway locomotive, which occasioned this case. It was also our first encounter with a 'lady' who was, by no stretching of the definition, a character!

Mr. Jehoshaphat Jones, a director of the aforementioned railway company, looked decidedly ill at ease in our Baker Street home. He was about fifty, overweight, very well-to-do and (in my opinion) with far too high an opinion of himself, as if he was lowering his standards to seek help from Cas. The way he looked almost pityingly around the room made me quietly seethe. Though not that quietly, judging from the knowing look my friend was sending me.

“I don't understand it, Mr. Novak”, our unwelcome guest whined, patting his forehead with a handkerchief, clearly still recovering from the effort of our stairs. “I mean, a whole railway locomotive? And now of all times!”

“You had better calm yourself”, Cas said placidly, “and start at the beginning. Once we know all the facts, we may be able to help you.”

I was slightly vexed that the director gave me a look which said quite clearly that he did not expect me to be of any help, but fortunately (for him) he did not voice that thought. Probably because he caught Cas looking at him with a warning look. He cleared his throat and began his tale.

“Our company was formed by an 1862 Act of Parliament which combined several smaller and unprofitable railways companies in East Anglia”, he said. We have grown since, and as I am sure you are aware, operate out of Liverpool Street Station. Our main engineering works is at Stratford in Essex, and it is there that we seem to have 'lost' an entire railway locomotive!”

That was careless of you, I thought bitchily.

“As part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations”, he went on “Her Majesty was due to use our company to travel between Liverpool Street and Chelmsford for a visit to that noble city. The trip is due to take place in two days' time, and whilst I fully expect it to still go ahead, it would be mortifying for our good name if this story were to come out. As it is, I am amazed the press has not got wind of it yet.”

I could not but agree. There were few secrets in London that our city's journalists could not ferret out, once they got the slightest hint of it. And the fact this had happened at the works meant that this story must have been known to dozens of people. That none of them had talked was frankly amazing.

He saw my astonishment and nodded.

“I should say at the start that relations between the company and the men at the works have been.... difficult as of late”, he admitted. “Just before our own silver jubilee celebrations, which happily coincided with Her Majesty's golden ones, they actually went on strike for more money! An outrageous demand, I am sure you will agree, but it was made worse when the managers at the works actually sided with them! I was shocked, I can tell you. Fortunately our differences were resolved, though there was still a lot of bad feeling around. In the light of such unreasonable behaviour, I would fully have expected at least one of them to go to the press by now.”

“I remember the story”, I said, pleased at what I was about to say. “Did not you and the other directors vote yourselves generous bonuses whilst the matter was being resolved?”

He gave me a withering look, which I returned.

“Mr. Jones”, Cas said, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

“I am sorry, I am rambling”, the director said. He drew a deep breath and resumed his tale.

“Our royal coach is kept at Liverpool Street, and it was decided to assign our jubilee locomotive, engine number 699, for the royal trip. She was the prototype to our T19 class, a 2-4-0 and our latest and fastest model. Because of our celebrations, she was named Silver Blaze at the start of the year; we rarely name our locomotives, unlike other railways. She was never meant to keep the name, but she proved so popular with the public that we decided to retain it. It was originally suggested that she be painted silver or grey, but because of the nature of locomotive work, which is quite dirty, it was decided to stick with our standard blue but with grey lining.”

“Yesterday, Silver Blaze was meant to do a test run up to Liverpool Street, to make sure there was no problem with either her or fitting her to the royal coach. She would then return to Stratford Works. She left the works just after six in the morning. She should have passed Coborn Road Station about ten minutes later at most, yet she never reached it. When the slow train that was following her went through, the Coborn signalman telegraphed his colleague at Stratford, asking where the light locomotive he had been told to expect was. He informed the works, and a search was initiated at once.”

“What about the driver and fireman?” Cas asked.

Mr. Jones groaned.

“Two works men, Charles Sanderson and Sidney Hever, were meant to drive her”, our guest said. “During the search, both men were found bound and gagged in a small back room at the works. They had not seen their attackers, who had jumped them and knocked them out as they came in to get changed. She was all fired up and ready to go, and whoever took her knew exactly what they were doing. An inside job, for sure.”

“But they cannot just make a whole locomotive disappear!” I objected. “What about branch lines?”

He looked at me pityingly, and I really wanted to hit him. 

“The doctor makes a good point”, Cas said, and I could see that even his patience was wearing thin. “Kindly answer his question.”

I did not stick my tongue out at our guest, despite the temptation. But I did enjoy a feeling of smugness at the put-down.

“We know the train could not have gone east”, Mr. Jones said, “because it would have had to pass through Stratford station, which is busy even at that time of the morning. West, there is only one branch-line down which the engine could have passed, a connecting line to Fenchurch Street Station, with a local station barely half a mile along at Bow Road. The points are controlled from a ground-box; we had it checked, but it does not appear to have been tampered with. We naturally contacted the Bow Road signalman just in case, and he told us that no light engine had passed his box. However, one of the works men was there waiting to catch a train to work, and he says that he heard a locomotive or train pass through going towards Stratford when none was due. The signalman has no record of any such train.”

“It could be that one or both of them was lying”, I muttered, eager to add to our unpleasant guest's discomfiture.

Cas pressed his long fingers together. I knew that look; he knew something, and was deliberating whether or not to say something. I hoped for not.

II

“You mentioned that this was a prototype locomotive”, Cas said eventually. “Have any others of the class entered service?”

Mr. Jones seemed surprised at the question. 

“Numbers 710 and 711 have”, he said, “and 712 is a few weeks away from joining them, complete at the works except for some final tests. We have older locomotives numbered 700 to 709, so we passed those numbers.”

“Does your company paint names on its engines, or use name-plates?”

“Sir!”

I could see from Cas' face that he was now genuinely annoyed. Clearly our guest finally got the message as well, and answered his question.

“The few names we have are painted”, he said, “but for Silver Blaze we had two special grey name-plates cast for the smoke-box. But these cannot have been transferred to either of the other two engines in service, sir. I checked, and 710 was working the London to Norwich train, whilst 711 was being tested on the Lowestoft line. And 712 had not been steamed, and was being worked on that morning anyway.”

“Stratford is on the London to Norwich line”, Cas observed.

“Do you think.....?”

“I do not think”, Cas said abruptly. “I prefer to know. This is a most intriguing case, Mr. Jones. However, I do foresee certain problems in restoring your locomotive to you.”

“Can you help us, sir?” the director asked.

“No. At least, not yet.”

I jumped. I had not been expecting that. And clearly, neither had Mr. Jones.

“Mr. Novak!”

“There is of course the unlikely possibility that I am wrong”, my friend said, “but I doubt that very much. In view of the obvious facts of the case, I may not be able to restore your locomotive for some considerable time. Regrettably I cannot say how long, but I shall telegraph you to arrange a meeting some time soon – possibly within a week or so - and we shall see what we shall see. You had better assign another engine to the Royal Train.”

I could see that our guest was far from happy at this, but he made his farewells and left. I stared at Cas in surprise.

“I did not like the man's attitude”, Cas said shortly. “His treatment of you was shabby, and he seems to think himself better than us. I am fairly sure that I know what happened to this phantom traveller – obviously there is only one real possibility – but I see no reason to spare such an unpleasant man a measure of embarrassment, especially as the story will be in all the papers tomorrow. If not this evening.”

“How do you know that?” I demanded. It may have been obvious to him, but I could not see how a whole railway locomotive could just vanish into thin air. He chuckled.

“I am walking down to the post office to send a telegram”, he said. “Do you wish me to post your letter to the bank?”

“Yes, please”, I said, still musing about what he had said. Unless that branch-line signalman had been lying, it all seemed quite impossible. 

Cas smiled, and left.

+~+~+

He was back in less than half an hour, and we spent a quiet afternoon in. That quiet ended, however, when the evening paper was accompanied by a telegram for Cas. He read it quickly, smiled, and looked inquiringly at me. I put the paper down and resisted a temptation to scowl.

“All right”, I sighed. “'Mysterious Disappearance of Queen's Locomotive'. 'Great Eastern directors flummoxed'. 'England's Own Vortex To Another Dimension?'”

“I think the copy-writers may have been working in the taverns again”, Cas smiled. “Doubtless Mr. Jones is hitting the roof just now. The publicity will be very damaging.”

“I wonder the story did not leak out sooner”, I said. 

“It is more damaging this way”, Cas said. “It will still be headline news tomorrow, and then the Queen's visit the next day will keep it there.”

I looked at him in surprise.

“It was leaked deliberately?” I asked.

“Of course”, he said. “And the man behind it is due here first thing tomorrow morning. If you can delay going into work for a couple of hours, I am sure you would be interested in meeting the person who made a whole locomotive disappear.”

“I most definitely would!” I said fervently.

+~+~+

Just over twelve hours later, I was sat in our main room, awaiting the arrival of the train thief. I do not know quite what I was expecting, but the omega who came through the door punctually at eight o'clock in the morning was not it. He bowed to us both, looking decidedly nervous.

“Mr. Uriah Cottonworth, gentlemen”, he said.

“Pray be seated”, Cas said courteously. “I promise we will not detain you for too long. I know you have to be back at he works, but Mr. Jones has been informed that I have to ask you a few things regarding the disappearance of an entire steam railway locomotive.”

The man was in his forties, short, had receding hair and was generally unprepossessing even for an omega. If this was what a master thief looked like, then he must also be a master of disguise. Cas offered him a cup of tea, which he took with a hand that trembled slightly.

“Mr. Cottonworth is the works manager at Stratford”, Cas explained to me. “And to those who consider engineering to be a form of magic, he is a great example. It is not many men who can make forty-two tons of metal just disappear.”

The man blushed.

“You are too generous to trifle with me, sir”, he said to Cas. “I trust from your telegram that you know all?”

He took the telegram out of his pocket, and handed it to Cas, who passed it over to me. I read it:

'Synergy. 221B. 0800 tomorrow.'

III

“I don't understand”, I said. 

“Synergy is the theory that something can be greater than the sum of its parts”, Cas explained. “And that is what this story is all about, is it not, Mr. Cottonworth? Parts.”

Our guest blushed, but stayed silent. 

“I shall tell the doctor what you did, for the record”, Cas said, and he seemed strangely relaxed in the presence of someone who stood accused of thievery. “This case really began with the pay and conditions dispute earlier in the year. A dispute that was handled very badly by Mr. Jones and his fellow directors, who denied you a pay rise whilst voting themselves huge bonuses. Typical management behaviour, sad to say.”

“They did”, our guest muttered. “They told us there was no money for a pay rise, then voted themselves one whilst we were still negotiating. It caused a load of bad feeling at the works.”

“In so doing, they managed to unite the whole of the works against them”, Cas said. “That was important, as just one person could have blown this plot wide open. But you were united against greedy managers, and determined to teach them a lesson. And the Queen's decision to use the Great Eastern Railway to visit Chelmsford gave you the perfect opportunity so to do.”

“I must say that you planned it exceptionally well, and that had I considered you to be of a criminal persuasion, we would be undertaking this interview in the presence of my friend, Sergeant Henriksen.”

Our guest shuddered.

“Silver Blaze is taken in the night before her test run to Liverpool Street, and completely disassembled. The parts that constituted her are stored under false numbers, possibly to be used over time in the construction of other members of the class.”

Mr. Cottonworth nodded.

“We were going to split them between the next four engines in the class”, he admitted. “712 was all but finished, you see.”

“That also shows premeditation”, Cas said. “Some considerable time passed between the dispute being resolved and the dismantling, and during that time spaces were slowly added to the parts list to accommodate a complete locomotive. It helped that the Great Eastern Railway was in the process of absorbing a couple of smaller companies, and that their stock was relocated to Stratford. By the time of the 'theft', Silver Blaze existed in two places, a complete locomotive on the tracks, and the sum of its parts in the store.”

“Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Hever then played their part”, he continued, “each taking a blow to the head and allowing themselves to be tied up. I dare say that if the police were ever to question the men at the works, one or more of them would have 'remembered' seeing Silver Blaze leaving down the line towards London. In reality, of course, the engine was still in the works. In pieces.”

Our visitor nodded, and sighed.

“I presume you will tell Mr. Jones?” he said resignedly.

Cas sat back.

“Mr. Jones merely asked me to restore his engine to him”, he said, “and I did warn him there might be problems with that. Mr. Cottonworth, I have a hypothetical question for you. It took one night to completely disassemble a Class T19 locomotive. How long would it take to reassemble one from the same pieces?”

The man looked at him in shock, hope in his eyes.

“It... could be done in one night, sir”, he said warily. “All the pieces are in store. It is just a question of fitting them together.”

Cas smiled.

“I shall send Mr. Jones a telegram, asking him to meet us at the works in four days' time”, he said. “Who knows what we will find if we walk round some of the rarely-used sidings?”

He looked meaningfully at our guest, who seemed on the verge of tears.

“Thank you, sir! Thank you so much!”

“Perhaps you might thank Mr. Jones”, Cas observed. “Had he not been so completely insufferable when he requested my help, I might have been less lenient. I do hope I shall receive a telegram from you sometime soon, sir. The word 'complete' should suffice.”

The man looked as if he could not believe his luck. He shook both our hands, and almost ran from the room.

“That was very generous, Cas”, I said. 

“No real theft took place”, my friend pointed out. “The parts would all have remained the property of the company, who would have had them unwittingly used in future locomotives. And I must say I look forward to seeing Mr. Jones' face when he is reunited with Silver Blaze!”

+~+~+

I was surprised a few days later when, as were being driven towards Liverpool Street Station, when Cas said he had hired a special for the short journey to Stratford. It seemed an unnecessary indulgence, especially as the cab itself took us almost halfway there. We would be on the train for less than ten minutes. He had also said that we would be meeting someone else at the works, but refused to say who, no matter how much I pouted. Which was blatantly unfair!

Our locomotive was a small tank-engine, and we had a single non-corridor coach for the journey. The guard's whistle blew, and we were off.

“This journey will take approximately nine minutes”, Novak said airily. “Dean, get your clothes off, please.”

I blinked at him, but he was already efficiently removing his own clothes.

“Nine minutes?” I squeaked, as I hastened to obey.

“Nine minutes there, and another nine minutes back”, he said, and damnation, he was done except for his socks, which bizarrely if appropriately had slices of bacon all over them. “I will do you on the down journey, and you can return the favour on the way back up.”

And have to spend my time at the works thinking of that, I groused silently. Then he was tackling me onto the mercifully wide seats, and I decided it was best to just lie back and think of England. I braced for his fingers to start opening me up, and got the surprise of my life when I realized that they were covered in some sort of oil.

“Medical lubricant”, he said, quickly and efficiently scissoring me open, and brushing his fingers teasingly over my prostate (I would pay him back for that later, if I was able, I swore). “The wonders of modern technology, it even comes in herbal varieties.”

“Isn't that..... just for omegas?” I managed, quite proud that I had managed five words at a time when I was usually completely incoherent.

“I told the chemist that I wanted to pleasure my mate”, he said, and I felt his cock head pushing against my entrance. “I did not lie.”

I had about two seconds to dwell on the fact that he had actually used the M-word about me before he thrust inside me. That lubricant certainly worked wonders, as I was rarely able to take him so fast, but even so, I felt my eyes water. Then the blue-eyed bastard was reaching forward and tweaking my nipples, and I moaned in ecstasy.

“Cas!”

He leaned forward and kissed me on the lips, one free hand reaching down to tantalize my over-sensitive cock. 

“I think on the journey back to London, I want to ride you!”

That was it. I came violently, whining as my body strove to decide whether this was pleasure, pain or both at the same time. He held me close, and I clenched around him, causing him to shudder before coming inside me. I tried to steady my breathing as I clung onto him.

“Only three minutes until we reach Stratford”, he said calmly, looking at his watch which he had placed on the seat opposite. “We should get changed.”

I tried reminding myself that I was a fit young (well, early middle-aged) alpha who could do things like this, but my legs were like jelly, and Cas had to help me back into my clothes. We had cut it fine; I had just pulled up my zip and sat down when the train perceptibly slowed, and a minute later we were in the station.

IV

Mr. Jehoshaphat Jones stared incredulously at the scene before him. We were in the carriage sidings at the Stratford works; himself, Cas, myself, Mr. Cottonworth and the person Cas had arranged to meet here, a Miss Charlotta Bradbury. She was a most unconventional-looking young lady, her virulent red hair more than offset by the mechanic's overalls she was wearing. I had seriously been concerned that Mr. Jones was going to faint when he saw her, but he managed to stay upright. Mr. Cottonworth had only narrowly succeeded in hiding his enjoyment of his director's discomfiture under a timely fit of coughing when we were all introduced. 

The reason for Mr. Jones' second shock of the day was what lay before him in the sidings. A large express passenger locomotive, with the Silver Blaze nameplates shining in the early afternoon sun. 

“This is impossible!” he snorted at last.

“You did ask that I restore your locomotive to you”, Cas reminded him. “I have done so. My bill will be in the post.”

“But how?” the director demanded. “I must know how!”

I knew Cas always enjoyed these moments of revelation, though I saw Mr. Cottonworth tense up out of the director's line of vision. Cas looked thoughtfully at Mr. Jones.”

“No”, he said quietly.

The director spluttered furiously.

“What do you mean, 'no'?” he demanded. “I employed you, and I demand answers!”

I was reminded of a petulant child stamping his foot and demanding he get his way. Some people do not change as they grow up.

“You employed me to return your locomotive”, Cas said dryly. “That was your only request. Had you required to learn the whereabouts of said locomotive before, during and after Her Majesty's trip to Essex, you should have specified as such. If there is nothing else, we shall be leaving.”

“This is outrageous!” Mr. Jones stormed. He turned on Mr. Cottonworth, who took a step back from the larger man. “I know you and those scum who work for you are behind this, Cottonworth. I'll sack one of you every day until I get to the truth. Starting with you!”

“I do not think so.”

I turned in surprise. It was Miss Bradbury who had spoken. Mr. Jones blinked several times, but managed to pull himself together.

“I do not know who you are, madam”, he said haughtily, “but this is none of your business. A woman's place is in the home!”

He stepped towards her as he spoke, clearly expecting her to back away as Mr. Cottonworth had done. To his and my surprise she stepped in, and grinned knowingly at him. He visibly flinched.

“Felixstowe”, she said lightly.

I had no idea why she said that, but the name of that Suffolk port seemed to have a definite effect on Mr. Jones. He went very red, and stepped backwards.

“Miss Bradbury is one of the most efficient people in London when it comes to finding out useful information”, Cas said. “Her organization knows almost everything about almost everybody. After your first meeting with us, I foresaw that you might pursue a vendetta against the people who work here, so I took the precaution of contacting her. It took her less than six hours to find the information I required, and she felt compelled to apologize for the unusual delay.”

“What information?” I asked. Miss Bradbury grinned at me.

“When this pompous oaf's company took over the Felixstowe Railway Company last year”, she said, “they did so by simply merging the shareholdings of the two companies. Not illegal in itself, except that several directors of the Great Eastern, including Mr. Jones here, knew of the deal before it went through. They issued a press release to deny the takeover, then when the Felixstowe Railway's share price crashed, brought lots of shares cheaply and then took it over. In the case of Mr. Jones here, he made nearly two hundred pounds on the deal at no risk to himself. That, sir, is illegal under British law, and punishable by time in jail!”

“I am sure you need not be told that the doctor and I will be keeping in close contact with our new friends at the works”, Cas said acidly. “If there is any action taken against any of them, then Miss Bradbury's findings will be sent to every newspaper in London. Followed swiftly, I suspect, by the Metropolitan Police calling at your door, Mr. Jones. Have a good day!”

And with that he led the way out of the sidings, with myself and Miss Bradbury hurrying after him.

+~+~+

The journey back to London was... bumpy. But it was downright mean of Cas to stop by a shop in the station and ask if I needed him to buy me a walking-stick. Mean, but possibly not inaccurate. I was still walking gingerly when we got back to Baker Street.

+~+~+

Our next case was most definitely close to home!


	8. Case 35: Provenance (1887)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished, mentioned elsewhere as 'the case of the Grosvenor Square Removal Van'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: as motorized transport becomes ever more common, the English language, as resilient as ever, adapts. At the time of this story, just three decades past, the term 'van' referred not a motor transport vehicle but to a reinforced horse-drawn covered goods cart.

I

One of the most famous elements of what eventually became the Novak Legend was our third place of residence, 221B Baker Street, from which he solved the vast bulk of his cases. As this story concerns that house and its origins - indeed, the case could hardly have been closer to home - I am going to take this opportunity to accede to the requests from certain of my readers, and tell them a little about it.

We moved into 221B subsequent to (and partly as a result of) the events relayed in 'Yellow Fever' in 'Eighty-Three (I say 'we', although in truth it was I and Cas' belongings, as he disappeared for three years the reasons for which, at the time of this story, had not yet been made clear to me). The house was the right-hand third (i.e. the southern end) of the former Number 221 Baker Street, which itself was one of the original houses when the builder Mr. William Baker had laid the street out in seventeen hundred and fifty-five, during the reign of King George the Second. Edward Harley, who had inherited the title Earl Oxford and Mortimer that same year, wished to mark his accession by obtaining a three-storey country house near the City, and paid for the building of one of Mr. Baker's planned properties, which due to his Welsh roots became known as Glendower Mansion. That the city of Oxford was also where I had my memorable first meeting with Cas was just one of those strange coincidences.

With the relentless expansion of the Great Wen ever northwards, the house acquired its number some time after the turn of the century. Around 'Fifty-Three, when the death of Edward Harley's great-nephew Alfred led to the earldom becoming extinct, the house was sold to a developer who divided it into three family dwellings, numbered 221, 221A and 221B (I believe he himself lived for a time at 221, but was gone long before we came there). 221B passed eventually into the possession of Mr. and Mrs. William Harvelle, which was how we found our own home there. And this story concerns one of our neighbours in 221A (not directly; our rooms lay on the opposite side from the dividing wall). Neighbours who, on moving in, found a most unwelcome addition to their belongings.

A dead body.

+~+~+

This case was brought to our attention by our illustrious landlady, who knocked at our door one day and was bade to enter. I looked up in surprise; Mrs. Harvelle was as regular as clockwork in her schedule, and this unexpected appearance bode ill.

“I was wondering, sirs, if you could see the two ladies who have just moved in next door”, she said.

I had seen the 'Grosvenor Square Furniture And Household Removals Company Incorporated' van parked outside next door earlier, and besides thinking that they possibly needed a more memorable name, had thought little more of it at the time.

“Of course”, Cas smiled. “Did they mention what it is they wish to see us about?”

She shook her head.

“They are two elderly ladies, sir, and I would go so far to say they are positively distressed”, she said emphasizing the word. “Beth – Mrs. Harrison – advised that they call the police over the matter, but they were horrified at the idea, so she suggested that they might see you first, and that you could approach Sergeant Henriksen on their behalf.”

“It sounds most intriguing”, Cas said. “Pray send them up directly.”

She nodded, and left. A few moments later she returned with our visitors. They were both indeed elderly, but clearly ladies of quality. They were also quite distrait. Cas pulled chairs out for them at the table whilst Mrs. Harvelle left, promising to bring up tea and cakes shortly.

“It is so kind of you to see us like this, Mr. Novak”, the taller of the two ladies said, addressing me. “Letitia and I have read your cases, and we could not believe how lucky we were to find you living right next door at this terrible moment!”

I smiled.

“Actually, I am Doctor Dean Winchester”, I said, gesturing to my friend who was also smiling slightly. “That is Mr. Castiel Novak.”

They both turned to look at him, and the taller of the two actually simpered. Honestly, she was almost old enough to be his grandmother! What was it about the man? I bit back a defensive growl.

“My name is Charlotte Beringar”, the taller lady said, “and this is my sister Letitia. We were due to move into new rooms next door today, but... but....”

She ground to a halt and looked appealingly at her sister, who took up the tale. 

“We used to own a small house in Grosvenor Square”, the shorter lady began. “It was old, run-down and falling to pieces around us, but we loved it. However, it was becoming too much for us, especially after our only tenant came into a small inheritance and moved out to his own place. Then we had a piece of luck. A representative of the Belgian government, a Mr. Vermery or some such, offered to buy the house at a price considerably above its market value.”

“Why?” I asked, suspiciously.

“His government was seemingly looking to obtain an address in the Square”, Letitia Beringar explained. “We were very fortunate; the Smiths next door accepted the offer made to them, and the Belgians plan to knock the two houses into one, although they will need several other of the nearby houses to make it large enough for an embassy. Mr. Vermery had to return to Belgium before the sale went through, but another Belgian gentleman took over, a Mr. Fallaheim or something. I can never remember foreign names, even though our capital seems to be getting full of them.”

I suppressed a smile, as apparently the incongruity of that remark, given to whom they were talking, had not registered with either lady. A slight twitch of the lips told me that Cas had found it amusing, too.

“We hired a company to move all our worldly goods from the old house”, Charlotte Beringar continued, shooting her sister an annoyed look that suggested she had spotted the slight faux pas. “Or at least the ones we wanted to keep; when we sorted through our belongings, it was amazing just how many accoutrements one acquires over the years.”

“Yes”, her sister put in, “and that was what caused the trouble!”

“How so?” Cas asked politely.

“We found our old wardrobe was rotten at the back”, Charlotte Beringar said, “so we decided to acquire a new one. I had visited a friend who lives near the docks recently, and had seen a most delightful old piece in an antique shop owned by a business acquaintance of hers. The man kindly gave me the measurements, so I could make sure it would fit in our new home, and when it did, we decided to buy it. I went back there to complete the sale two days ago. The removals men went to the shop to pick it up for us this morning, then came back to the square to collect the rest of our belongings. Once they were here, they placed everything in the rooms as we requested, and left.”

“I did not like that Mr. Gull”, her sister said sourly. “He was not at all careful with the boxes. And he smelt of alcohol!”

She might have well accused the man of murdering a puppy in front of her, from her tone!

“That is true”, Charlotte Beringar admitted. “Howsoever, we then set about starting to unpack; I opened our new wardrobe, and.... and....”

Her sister reached a supporting hand across.

II

“And inside was a man's body, Mr. Novak. Quite dead. A young man, too.”

Cas nodded sympathetically, then seemed to deliberate for quite a while before speaking.

“Ladies”, he said, “you have undergone a terrible experience, and through no fault of your own. Clearly this matter must be investigated by the police.”

Both ladies shuddered delicately at that prospect.

“I shall send a message round to my good friend Sergeant Henriksen”, Cas said reassuringly. “He is most discreet, and I trust him implicitly. Once he arrives, we shall examine the body more closely. Am I to assume the poor young man is still in your rooms, Miss Beringar?”

Charlotte Beringar nodded fitfully.

“That is good”, Cas said with a smile. He took a card from his card-case and wrote something on the back of it before turning back to the taller sister. “Miss Beringar, Doctor Winchester will accompany you next door, where you must pack a bag for a period of some nights away from your new rooms. Although it is not technically the scene of a crime, I suspect neither of you would wish to stay there for now.”

“Indeed not!” Charlotte Beringar said forcefully. “But where shall we go? I do not wish to call unannounced on any of our friends, if I can avoid it.”

Cas handed her the card. 

“Once you are finished packing, Doctor Winchester will obtain a cab for you and your sister”, he said. He gestured to the card. “That hotel is where my brother Gabriel is the manager. Ask at the desk for him by name, and he will obtain you a room free of charge.”

“But sir....”

“I insist”, Cas said firmly. “Besides, once this story reaches the papers, they may send journalists round to ask questions. And that cannot be long; I have seen a small crowd gathering outside already. They will of course lose interest after a few days, but I would not wish either of you dear ladies to be subject to that. Doubtless Sergeant Henriksen will call to collect your statements for his own records later today, but we shall cross that bridge when we come to it. Now, doctor, if you please?”

I stood and offered my arm to a shocked Charlotte Beringar, who hesitated only briefly before taking it and following me from the room. Though she still managed one last simper at Cas! Hmph!

+~+~+

Half an hour later, the Beringar sisters were safely dispatched to one of the best hotels in London, and Cas, Henriksen and myself were standing in the main bedroom of Room Three in 221A Baker Street. It was in most ways a standard Victorian bedroom, except possibly for the dead young man half-hanging out of the wardrobe. 

“They could have tidied him up a bit”, the sergeant grumbled, as he and I gently lifted the body and laid it out on one of the beds (having of course first checked there was no bleeding; I did not want the Beringars to get that sort of welcome-home present!). 

I glanced out of the window, and sighed. Cas had been right; there was already a sizable crowd gathered outside 221A. Luckily we had avoided them as Mrs. Harrison had let us through the normally locked connecting door. I turned back, and began to examine the dead man. He had been in his early twenties, and there was something distinctly foreign about him with his long nose and distinctly over-perfumed auburn hair. He was wearing a shabby suit, and Henriksen ran quickly through the pockets.

“At least the ladies found a clue for us”, Henriksen said, leafing through a rather tatty wallet. “And a card. 'Mr. Nicholas Davies'. Well, he doesn't look like a Mr. Davies.”

Cas had been examining the dead man's hands, and now turned his attention to the discarded suit jacket. I thought he was going to ignore the inspector's remark, until he spoke.

“That is because he is not.”

Henriksen stared at him.

“How do you know that?” he demanded.

“Look at his left hand”, Cas said, raising it for inspection, “and the wear between the thumb and forefinger. This man is clearly a clerk of some description, as he writes for a living. Yet his house-keys were in his right-hand suit pocket. Clearly they must have fallen out when he was moved, and been replaced by a right-handed man, who placed then where he himself would have kept them.”

Henriksen whistled his approval. 

“So he is a foreigner, then”, he said. “Can't trust them an inch!”

I forbore from commenting on the fact I was the only full-born Englishman in the room, Henriksen having been born in the West Indies and Cas on a trip to the Novak homeland in the east. Though from the amused twinkle in my friend's eyes, I knew he had picked up on the remark.

“I think I can be fairly sure as to the cause of death”, I said, finishing my examination. “A very unusual one. He died of a heart-attack.”

Henriksen gasped.

“But he was not yet thirty!” he protested.

“It may be that there was a congenital weakness in his heart, which gave way under a level of stress which a normal man could have coped with”, I said. “I would recommend a post mortem to make certain, but there are no wounds or injuries on his body, or at least none that I can see. Unless that attack was induced in some way by someone who had prior knowledge of his weakness, this man died a natural death.”

“Then what the hell was he doing in those ladies' wardrobe?” Henriksen demanded.

“The Beringars were kind enough to provide us with information as to the name of the shop that produced both wardrobe and corpse”, Cas said, unfolding a piece of paper. “Doctor, as it is the weekend, I think you and I might take a stroll over there. Who is the local sergeant, Henriksen?”

The policeman looked at the address on the paper.

“Penrose at Milton Avenue”, he said without hesitation. “A good sort; a bit young, but he knows his stuff. You'd definitely do well to talk to him before you go onto his patch, though. He's very protective.”

“We shall so do”, Cas said. 

+~+~+

Cas and I accompanied Henriksen to Gabriel Novak's hotel, where we found the Beringars happily ensconced (and still, I am sorry to say, simpering!). My friend gently introduced the sergeant to the two ladies, and left them discussing the case. To my surprise he did not immediately move to leave the hotel, but instead led me up several flights of stairs to one of the rooms, to which he produced a key. I would have asked him how he had obtained it, but he quickly led me inside and locked the door behind us.

“Dean!”

The Voice. What, now? Right in the middle of a case?

“You were jealous, weren't you?” he growled, invading my personal space and running a hand over my face. I whined pitifully.

“Nothing to be jealous about”, I said, trying to sound confident. The quiver in my voice may have weakened that position somewhat.

He was suddenly backing away from me, and as usual was out of his clothes impossibly fast. He clambered up onto the huge king-sized bed, kneeling before moving forward, sticking his glorious backside into the air. I moaned, and started trying to get undressed as quickly as I could, managing to fall over ingloriously when I pulled too hard at my trousers. I heard him snigger, and resolved that he would pay for that!

Finally naked except for my socks (I did not want to wait the extra few seconds), I clambered up behind him, and only then did I realize that during my botched undressing that he had prepared himself for me. I grunted in anticipation and in one swift movement I was in, my balls slapping against his backside. I do not know what it was about Cas, but his scent just turned me into either a sex-starved omega or a sex-crazed alpha. There was no middle ground with him.

Half out of it as I was, I managed to avoid hitting his prostate, and he grunted in disapproval. I should have known better. Somehow he managed to reach round and grab me to him, then collapsed onto the bed pulling me down on top of him. He whined as I finally (if unintentionally) hit home, and clenched his walls around me as he raced towards orgasm. I should have tried to deny him, but I had not the strength he had during sex, and I actually climaxed first, albeit by just a few seconds. I was still coming when he started, his muscular body writhing beneath my larger one, wringing even more come out of me. It was a tribute to his strength that I had virtually my whole body weight on top of him, yet he bore me without the slightest sign of stress. And I was happy to lie there, exhausted and needing time to recover.

III

“I did not see you get the key to that room”, I asked as our cab took us to the docks. I had tidied myself up as best I could but Cas looked as ruffled as he always did. He grinned.

“I took it the last time I called in at the family home”, he said.

I stared at him in confusion, before even my poor deductive skills got it.

“You.... just had sex with me in your brother's bedroom?” I gasped. 

It came out louder than I had planned, and I was glad the driver on these vehicles was always some way at the rear. He smirked.

“Payback for him spying on us”, he said. “I do not have Gabriel's resourcefulness when it comes to inventing practical jokes and pranks, but he and the rest of the family know not to cross me. My vengeance may be delayed, but is is never denied.”

“You used me!” I pouted.

“I do not recall hearing any objection at the time”, he mused. “A lot of panting and grunting, and there was definitely an 'I love you' when you were draped all over me after.....”

“Cas!”

The bastard! And he knew I had no way of ever getting back at him for it! I settled for a pout.

“I love it when you pout”, he whispered. 

Damnation!

+~+~+

Sergeant Lorimer Penrose was further proof, which I could have done without, that policemen seemed to be getting ever younger. He looked at us suspiciously when we introduced ourselves, though he visibly thawed when we mentioned our connection to Henriksen. 

“I've read all about you in the good doctor's stories, Mr. Novak”, he said, looking Cas up and down. “Have you reason to think a crime was committed on my patch?”

“That is a difficult question to answer”, Cas said. “It may even be that no crime was committed at all. But until we visit Gorringe Street, I cannot know for certain.”

“I'll come with you”, the sergeant said. “That road used to be my beat when I started here, so I know it fairly well. I'll just let them know I'm off out, and I'll join you.”

+~+~+

Gorringe Street turned out to be relatively not unpleasant for the area, to my surprise. Sergeant Penrose caught my expression.

“It used to be a lot worse”, he said, “but a fire came through twenty years back and destroyed most of the old buildings. They replaced all the burnt factory buildings with new houses; the place you want is one of the few that survived the fire. It used to be a huge warehouse, but they converted it into three smaller units.”

As we stood before an old building, I saw what he meant. The right and central parts of the edifice had been taken over by a huge stonemason's workshop, clearly very busy. To the left were two small shops, the furniture shop that the Beringars must have purchased their wardrobe from, and to the left of that a small store selling curios, whose windows were incredibly dirty. I turned to speak to my friend, only to see he was smiling.

“As I thought”, he said. “Sergeant, if these were all one building, would there still be access between the three businesses in there now?”

“I don't know, sir”, Penrose admitted.

“Then let us find out!” Cas said, striding towards the furniture shop.

+~+~+

It said something for the London gossip network that, even though the story of the body in the wardrobe had not hit the newspapers as yet, the shop owner, Mr. Felix Leowitz, knew what had happened. He was about fifty, greying and with a hook nose. I felt instinctively that this man could probably sell me London Bridge if he put his mind to it. I did not hide behind Cas, but it was close.

“Such a tragedy”, he said, leaning on the counter as he spoke to us. “Gentlemen, may I presume to ask a question?”

“Of course”, Cas said.

“Was the wardrobe locked before Miss Beringar opened it?”

Cas thought for a moment, then turned to me.

“Yes it was”, I said. “I asked her that when we were at the hotel, and she said that she had to get the key from the removal men. They had nearly gone off with it.”

The shop-owner looked meaningfully at us.

“I see”, Cas said.

“What?” I asked.

“The wardrobe was not locked when Mr. Leowitz sold it”, my friend said. “Yet when Miss Beringar went to open it in her room, it was. Therefore something happened between the shop and her room, and only the delivery men had the key.”

“Or Fred's men”, Mr. Leowitz put in. We all looked at him in confusion.

“Who is 'Fred'?” Cas asked.

“Mr. Leighton, owner of the stonemason's next door”, he explained. “The wardrobe was big for my own door – I'd fitted one of those fancy top parts to it, and it would barely fit through – so Fred offered two of his men to carry it round the back and through his works, out to the men at the front. It was safer that way.”

I noticed that both Cas' and the sergeant's eyes were gleaming at this revelation.

“I think Mr. Leighton might just have a few questions to answer”, the sergeant said quietly. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Leowitz. Your information has been invaluable.”

“One more question, if I may”, Cas said. “Do you happen to know if a Mr. Nicholas Davies works in the stonemason's?”

The shop-owner looked surprised.

“No”, he said, “but he is the owner's brother-in-law. I hope he is not involved in all of this. He seems a decent fellow.”

“I hope so too”, Cas said.

My friend and the sergeant went through the door. I was about to follow when the shop-owner called me back.

“Doctor?”

“Yes?”

He gestured to a small case which he had just placed on the counter-top. It was silver, and not too ornate.

“Ideal to keep a pipe in”, he said with a knowing smile.

“I don't smoke”, I pointed out.

“Or as a present for someone?” he suggested. “And there's a nice-sized gap to store things like extra stems. Or maybe.... barley sugar?”

I remembered that Christmas was, as ever, approaching far too fast. And the box was rather attractive. I sighed, took out my wallet and paid the price on the label. The shop-owner wrapped it up for me, and handed me my receipt.

“Good hunting, doctor”, he said, as I hurried after my friend. 

I was not sure whether he meant with the case or with my purchase. And I was not sure if I wanted to know. I caught up with the others by the stonemason's door.

“Our victim worked here”, Cas said.

“How do you know that?” the sergeant demanded.

“Because as well as the ink-marks on his hands, there was also a quantity of stone dust ingrained under his finger-nails”, Cas explained. “The question is; how exactly did he meet his end?”

IV

Mr. Frederick Leighton was not pleased to see us, though he could hardly say so openly.

“I am very busy, gentlemen”, the alpha sniffed. He was about forty, heavily tanned as if he had been in foreign parts, short and muscular. The other man in the room was much taller, paler and rather anaemic, though of about the same age and also an alpha. 

“My brother-in-law, Mr. Nicholas Davies”, Mr. Leighton said, clearly reluctantly. “Gentlemen, can this not wait?”

“No”, Cas said curtly, “it cannot.”

He sat down in one of the chairs, and stared thoughtfully at both men.

“I do hope you are both aware”, he said slowly, “that the concealment of a death is in itself a serious criminal offence. Your only hope, gentlemen, is to come clean with us, and tell us what happened. Otherwise the full force of a criminal investigation will be visited upon these works, with all the publicity that that would entail.”

Mr. Leighton flushed a horrible shade of white. His brother-in-law scowled, and stood up.

“Threats will not avail you here, Mr.....”

“Novak”, Cas said. “Castiel Novak. Private detective. Please sit down, Mr. Davies. If you will go moving dead bodies around, you must expect the consequences to be somewhat unpleasant.”

The man scowled again, but sat down. Mr. Leighton sighed.

“We didn't know”, he said flatly.

“Fred...” his brother-in-law began.

“No, Nick”, the manager said sternly. “He's right. I suppose it was partly my fault in a way, but I didn't think..... well....”

His voice trailed off, and he seemed to pull himself together.

“We had a rush consignment the last few days, shipping to a Norman cathedral with the boat leaving noon today”, he began. “Everyone was stressed out, even though I'd promised the men ten per cent extra in their pay packets if we met the deadline. We did, with two hours to spare.”

“Perhaps you had better tell us who the victim was”, Cas prompted.

“Seamus O'Reilly, an Irishman not long arrived in London”, the manager said. “We employed him three months back because he was a wizard with figures, though he was so anal about it – the merest ha'penny out, and you'd have thought it was the end of the world!”

“Ha'penny wise, pound foolish”, I muttered.

“You may be right”, Mr. Leighton conceded. “Well, just as we were racing against the clock, he decided to make a fuss about another problem he claimed that he'd found. I just wasn't in the mood, so I.... I did something rather petty. I placed one of those toy spiders in his ledger, the ones that bounce up when released. I thought it would just give him a shock!”

“It did”, I said, glaring at him. “A fatal one!”

“I wasn't to know!” Mr. Leighton said defensively. “Nick was with me when I found the body, and we... well, we panicked. Then I remembered that that idiot Jew next door was having someone come and pick up a big piece, and that he had asked if they might come through my works to get it out. It was just too easy. Nick and I went round there, took the wardrobe into our works, and put O'Reilly inside it.”

Mr. Davies put his head in his hands.

“Your attempt to give the man an alternate identity by placing one of your own cards in his wallet was ingenious”, Cas said, “though ultimately it enabled us to confirm your involvement. “And of course it was you who put the keys back into the dead man's suit pocket.”

Mr. Davies looked at him in astonishment.

“Fingerprints, I suppose”, he muttered.

“Actually no”, Cas said. “Mr. Leighton here worked with Mr. O'Reilly. He would have known the man was left-handed, whereas you instinctively placed the keys back in his right-hand pocket, and he did not notice your error.”

The taller man groaned.

“This is all very well”, Sergeant Penrose said, “but a crime has been committed here.”

“Would a jury convict?” I asked dubiously. 

“I have a suggestion”, Cas said. “Did Mr. O'Reilly have any relatives?”

“Only his grandmother”, Mr. Leighton said, “and she came over with him. Reluctantly; he said she missed Ireland. She would have gone back if it hadn't have been for him. Probably will, now.”

“Very well”, Cas said. “Mr. Leighton, this is your mess, and unless you want a criminal charge and the almost certain ruination of your business, you will have to fix it.”

The manager went pale again.

“”You will pay for Mr. O'Reilly's grandmother to return to Ireland”, Cas said firmly, “and you will cover all the funeral expenses, even if she wants him buried in his homeland. You will then set up a fund to provide her with a generous pension for the rest of her life. Otherwise”, and he shook a warning finger at the manager, “Doctor Winchester will have a most interesting new case!”

“It shall be done!” Mr. Leighton said fervently.

+~+~+

Mr. O'Reilly's grandmother turned out to be a Mrs. Ringwould, and she did indeed wish to go back to Ireland. She was seventy-four years old, but she defied expectations (and quite probably the hopes of Mr. Leighton's wallet) by living on for a further twenty years. Soon after she passed on, Mr. Leighton emigrated with his brother-in-law to Canada, where both remain to this day.

+~+~+

Our next case involved a scare for me, and Cas taking his abilities beyond England. Well, sort of......


	9. Case 36: ... And Then There Were None (1887)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously titled 'The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monmouthshire (the ancient one, not the modern and smaller county of the same name) was always part-English and part-Welsh, until the 1970s governments, fearful of a Welsh vote for independence, pushed it into Wales to help prevent it. The Isle of Man is a small island in the Irish Sea, roughly equidistant between England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland. It is a Crown dependency with its own parliament and laws, and therefore not part of either the United Kingdom or England.

I

My beloved Cas was, in so many ways, quintessentially English. Indeed, he preferred if possible to stay in or at least close to London at all times, presumably fearful that in his absence the criminal fraternity would immediately run amok! Ironically it was this case, which took us to two places that were English and yet not in England, which presaged our first and only visit to the Continent, and a whole plethora of cases which showed that Cas' abilities, like a good wine, travelled exceptionally well. It also showed me, yet again, that this wonderful man truly loved me, and that he was really too good for me. Fortunately, like so many people, I can cope surprisingly well when it comes to having what is too good for me.

The case mainly took place initially in the county of Monmouthshire, technically English and yet also Welsh, whose motto, Usque Fidelis ('Faithful to Both') I had wanted to be the title to this story. However, the killjoys at the Strand magazine insisted that this would be over the heads of many of my readers, and much as I value those who buy my works, I was forced to comply. Yet the story did indeed feature someone who was, despite the contortions it caused, faithful to two different causes. And two different ladies. Though bigamy was not involved. 

Well, not in this case.....

+~+~+

This case began in unusual circumstances, and can be dated from the very day after we (Cas) solved the Grosvenor Square Removal Van case. It had topped off a hectic couple of weeks when there had been a run of such small to medium cases, which I had noted with some alarm was visibly tiring the great man, on top of certain familial difficulties which, of course, I cannot divulge. Fortunately my dear friend Doctor Peter Greenwood had just come to my aid, telling me that he had recently acquired a rental on a cottage in the Monmouthshire village of Skenfrith, just across the border with Herefordshire, and asking me if I would like to take my friend there for a couple of weeks, as his wife was pregnant (with their sixth child!) and they could not go this year. I half-expected Cas to refuse, but to my surprise he agreed. 

It was not only my friend who needed a rest; we were short-staffed at the surgery, and the recent case had been the only one I had been able to accompany Cas on. I had pulled a muscle the previous week – before you ask, yes, Cas had been involved, and I had been too out of it at the time for the pain to really register – but today I had had a set of clients who seemed to live in the four corners of the City, and I had arrived home exhausted, my back aching. Cas was out, and I found a note stating that he was having an unwilling dinner at the family home but would be back immediately after. I therefore had to dine alone, and went to bed still aching.

I woke from a glorious dream in which I had six foot of glorious blue-eyed genius draped out along my back, and quickly realized that it was no dream. Then Cas shifted his weight, and I winced as he caught the tender spot on my back.

“What is wrong?” he asked anxiously, immediately slipping down beside me and gently rubbing his hand down my chin. I smiled at him. It was tender actions like those that made me love him even more, if that were humanly possible.

“Back”, I grunted. “Where old Mrs. Bannister whacked me with her stick last February. It has never been right, and I sort of made it worse last week.”

He looked at me in confusion.

“The Thursday night special”, I reminded him.

He frowned at me.

“You should have said”, he insisted. “You know I would never cause you pain, Dean.”

I kissed him lightly on the nose, and smiled in the darkness.

“You had me too blissed out for it to register at the time”, I reminded him. It may have been dark, but I knew he was blushing at that. Cas often tended to be extra demanding on the day of the week he was named after, and I never usually minded, but now my back was reminding me that I was over halfway from thirty to forty, and rather too far into middle-age.

“Have you seen another doctor about it?” he asked.

“Peter recommended that I go to Bath or Harrogate for a week or two, to take the waters”, I admitted. “Though I am looking forward to seeing the Welsh March, as I have never been in that part of the world before. It is fortunate the practice can spare me; Doctor Bullivant gets back tomorrow from Baden-Baden, where his niece is getting married. That is one place that I would have loved to go to.”

He nodded, and moved to position himself between my legs, shifting me onto my front. He must have sensed I was too exhausted for anything strenuous, for the next thing I felt was his long hands rubbing me gently all overt my back. I sighed happily, and tried to burrow deeper into the bed.

It said something about the effect Cas had on me that even now, exhausted and with him only pressing his hands into my back, I began to grow hard. He let out a dirty chuckle, and eased me onto my side so he could continue my back-rub with one hand whilst reaching round with the other and teasing my growing erection. I grunted in disapproval, but I could not have moved if my life had depended on it. I was totally at his mercy, and my manly pride could sod off to Brighton for all I cared. Then he stopped his attentions to my back and brought his other hand round to tweak my nipples. I gave one embarrassingly high-pitched whimper before I came violently.

I must have blacked out for a while, for when I came to Cas had cleaned me up, and was now rubbing himself up and down my back, his arms embracing me. I sighed happily as he nuzzled into the back of neck, and finally fell asleep. God, I was such a lucky man!

+~+~+

On the appointed day, we went to Paddington to catch a Great Western Railway train to Hereford, from whence we took a Cardiff-bound train as far as the village of Pontrilas. There we had to take a carriage for several miles, but the autumn weather was sunny without the oppressive heat of the capital, and we soon reached our destination. Cas was already looking a little better, and I congratulated myself on getting him away from the stresses and strains of his profession.

I really should have known better.

+~+~+

Our first week in the valley passed uneventfully. The village was home to a historic Marcher castle and a beautiful thirteenth-century church, both of which I enjoyed exploring. We hired horses and rode into the nearby town of Monmouth one day, which we found pleasant enough. On another day we journeyed up the beautiful Golden Valley to the charming town of Hay-on-Wye, and also visited the ruins of the nearby Clifford Castle, a place with a connection to the family whose descendants built Glendower Mansion, later 221-221B Baker Street. I was glad to be away from the oppressive heat of the capital, and Cas seemed to be enjoying himself, even if his hair was worse than ever in the winds blowing along the March. It just made him look even more beautiful, in my eyes.

Early on the first day of our second week we went out for a long walk, and returned to a pleasant luncheon at the local inn, the Bell. I had planned to spend the afternoon visiting the church again, but when we called back at the cottage for a quick cup of coffee (I had been wise enough to pack plenty of Cas' favoured brand for the duration, if only for my own safety!), we found someone waiting for us. She was a young lady of about twenty-five years of age, plainly dressed but well-presented.

“They tell me that you are the famous Mr. Castiel Novak”, she said in a melodious tone. “Is that true?”

I resisted an urge to groan. Honestly, were we not safe even in an out-of-the-way place like this? Cas smiled at our visitor.

“Indeed I am”, he said, “and this is Doctor Dean Winchester. How may we be of service?”

(All right, the 'we' made me feel a bit better.)

“I think my husband may be seeing another woman.”

We both stared at her in surprise. I recovered first.

“I'll get the coffee”, I said.

He smiled at me.

II

“My name is Mrs. Hannah Jones”, the lady said, having taken a seat. “I have been troubled by dear Ivor's behaviour for over two months now, and your arrival here seems providential.”

Not for my chances of getting the scruffy little urchin to take a rest, I thought, a little sourly.

“Pray tell us how this all began”, Cas asked. She nodded.

“I should begin by telling you that our union was difficult at the start”, she explained. “I was born Hannah Mortimer, the only daughter to the richest family in the village, whilst Ivor's father came to the area when they built the railway down to Abergavenny back in the fifties. He chose to remain, and his son also worked as a 'navvy', helping build the line up the Golden Valley. Ivor was eleven years older than me when we first met, twenty-seven to my sixteen, but I loved him, and I was blessed in that he returned my affections. My father not only refused the match, but arranged for him to be sent to work in London at a shipping company. Nevertheless, we remained in contact through the general post, much to Papa's disapproval.”

“Go on”, Cas urged.

“Ivor prospered in his work, and later moved to Liverpool, where he took over the running of the company's ships to Ireland and the Isle of Man. He returned to the village for a visit a little over five years ago, and again sought my hand in marriage; he was thirty-three then, and I was twenty-two. Papa was still not happy, but I made it clear that he was the only man I wanted, and we were duly joined in holy matrimony soon after.”

“When did things start going wrong?” Cas asked.

“I can name the date exactly”, she said, “for it was a most strange event that marked it. It was September the tenth, three weeks to the day after our marriage. . A letter came to the house, and I could see at once that it was unusual. The envelope seemed too thin to contain a letter, yet there was something inside it. Since Ivor was away in Ireland, I opened it as we had agreed. It contained precisely five orange pips, and nothing else. I thought it very odd, and when I mentioned it to him on his return, he looked most alarmed, but would not tell me why.”

“Did you happen to note where the letter came from?” Cas asked.

She shook her head.

“All I can say is that it was English”, she said, “and that it struck me that it had three postmarks on it, although I do not recall what they were. It was also exceptionally poorly-addressed, so it may have gone astray. It was soon after that I noticed a change in my husband. He spent longer away in Lancashire on business, although when he was home, he was more attentive than ever.”

“But you fear that those attentions are driven by guilt”, Cas said shrewdly. “This sounds most intriguing, Miss Jones. I am to presume that there have been more letters since?”

She nodded.

Two years ago Rogers, the postman, mentioned that he had had 'an odd letter' for Ivor”, she said. “It must have come whilst I was out, and my husband never mentioned it to me. And last week....”

She hesitated.

“Go on”, Cas urged.

She took a deep breath.

“I should not have done so”, she said looking down, “but a few days ago I needed to post a letter urgently, and had no stamps. I knew Ivor had some in his desk, so I opened a draw looking for them. I found a number of orange pips, fifteen in all. I supposed that there must have been a letter each year with one less pip than the year previous, though the meaning of such a strange means of communication eludes me.”

Castiel thought for a few moments.

Tell me”, he said, “is your husband currently away in Lancashire?”

“He is”, she said. “I fear....”

She stopped.

“Let us not indulge in idle speculation”, Cas said firmly. “We need facts. When is he next due to return here?”

“He said in his last letter that it will not be for two more weeks”, she said, looking miserable. “He has been delayed an extra five days 'on business'.”

The doubt in her words was palpable.

“I have one more question”, Cas said, “and it is a little indelicate, but needs must. You said that your husband was doing well at his job, but that alone would not, I suspect, have been enough to win your father over. What else happened?”

“A great-uncle of Ivor's passed on", she said, "and his estate was split amongst his many relatives. Ivor only received about two hundred pounds, but that has left us comfortably well off ever since. That was why he felt able to ask for my hand in marriage, now he was sure that he could support me. Is that important?”

“It may be”, Cas said. “This is a strange matter you have set before us, Mrs. Jones. I rather think that we need to visit your husband in person, and whilst he is about his business. Fortunately since he is not due to return as of yet, we can finish our holiday here and then proceed northwards. We shall of course communicate our findings to you as soon as we have any.”

“Thank you”, she smiled.

“Do you think he has another wife in Ireland or something?” I asked, once Mrs. Jones was safely gone.

“Anything is possible”, Cas said with a yawn. “You had better go and see your old church, before we are beset by more people seeing our help in this metropolis of a village!”

I chuckled.

+~+~+

Mercifully the rest of our holiday passed off uneventfully, and upon the conclusion of our holiday we worked our way cross-country up to Liverpool, a bustling place indeed. Upon inquiring at the shipping offices, Cas discovered that Mr. Jones hardly ever travelled to Ireland, but did make frequent trips to Man, and was due to sail there in two days' time.

We arrived back at our hotel to find a telegram from London. Cas read it and smiled. 

“It is from Balthazar”, he said. “Apparently he is in the middle of a developing political crisis, and he wants me back in London to help as soon as possible.”

“He put that in a telegram?” I said, surprised.

“The message actually states that our Aunt Ada is ill and not expected to last the week”, he explained. “He writes in code, predictably. But I shall not return until we have solved this case. He knows better than to push for more.”

Having seen Cas' temper when roused, I could vouch for that. And if I occasionally provoked him to be less gentle with me than normal, well, that was a gentleman's prerogative.

+~+~+

Cas had decided not to approach Mr. Jones until we reached Douglas, the Isle of Man's chief seaport. I was more concerned with the fact that the crossing was long and unpleasant, the seas being rough and a strong wind choosing that particular day to blow across the Irish Sea. Our quarry was due to spend the night on the island, and I silently thanked him when he immediately adjourned to a nearby hotel and, Cas told me, did not leave his room for the rest of the day.

“Though he had a visitor”, my friend said over dinner that evening (mercifully my stomach had stopped heaving). “A man by the name of Mr. Ernest Wiseman, who brought a set of papers with him to the room, and left them behind when he left.”

“I am surprised that you do not know the contents of the documents as well”, I chuckled.

“I can only say that they were legal documents of some sort”, Cas said, “as they bore distinctive markings. And Mr. Wiseman works for a firm of lawyers here in Douglas. We shall need to be up early tomorrow, to follow our prey wherever he goes.”

“What makes you think he is going somewhere?” I asked.

“Elementary”, he said. “If he had business only here in the town, he could have saved himself the expense of a night at a hotel and returned by the evening ferry, on which he is booked tomorrow. Therefore he is allowing himself some time on the island, and I doubt it is solely for company business. We shall see.”

I yawned as I nodded, and slipped beneath the covers. Cas locked the door and was soon with me, holding me – most definitely not spooning! - as I fell into a gloriously deep sleep.

III

The following morning the weather was fortunately much better. A mercifully caffeinated Cas was waiting for me at breakfast; I still remembered with horror the terrible day a few months ago when Mrs. Harvelle had run out of coffee. I do not think it was a mistake she would ever repeat, and if she did, I would rather move to Norway to avoid the ensuing fallout!

“Mr. Jones' porter relates that he had a timetable for trains south to Port Erin”, Cas told me over breakfast, eyeing my bacon enviously. He had more on his plate, but I still forked half of mine across, earning myself a loving glance. 

“We shall be able to let the train take the strain”, I smiled back, content with my sausages and eggs, whilst wondering if Cas was attempting to drown his heap of bacon in sauce. The man was a grub at times!

+~+~+

The trains on the island turned out to be narrow-gauge, though not as small as I had feared. Our first-class carriage, which Cas insisted on as our quarry had a third-class ticket, was very comfortable, and I enjoyed trundling along through the pleasant countryside, whilst Cas checked at each stop to see if our quarry was alighting. As things turned out he was indeed set for Port Erin, the last station on the line, which was a really quite beautiful little fishing port. I do not consider myself a 'tourist type', but even I could see the appeal of somewhere like this. 

Mr. Jones alighted from some way along the platform, and was almost immediately met by two people, another beta and a most attractive young girl of about twenty years of age. The man shook hands with our quarry, who then hugged the girl tightly - and kissed her! I looked at Cas in shock.

“She is almost young enough to be his daughter!” I hissed, before the realization hit me. He raised an eyebrow at me, but said nothing.

“Is she?” I asked eventually.

Mr. Jones had finished embracing the girl, and spoke a few quiet words to the other man before the three of them walked away into the town. I stared after them in shock.

“Poor Mrs. Jones”, I said at last. “I wonder what she will say when she finds out?”

“Well, as her boat from Liverpool gets in in less than half an hour, we shall soon find out”, Cas said airily. “I shall sent a telegram to intercept her at the port, and tell her to come here.”

He walked away whilst I was still recovering.

“Hey, wait a minute..... Cas!”

+~+~+

The three people we were following went for lunch at a small hotel on the sea front, and we slipped in a little after them. Cas ordered lunch, but I was almost too nervous to eat, though fortunately they had pie – cherry! - so I managed to force some down. A woman came up after about an hour, and the girl left with her. Cas kept checking his watch, and after a while stood up and ushered me over to the three of them. 

“May we join you, please?” he asked courteously.

Mr. Jones looked at him curiously.

“I've seen you somewhere before”, he said, and his tone was definitely wary. “Who are you, sir?”

“We enjoyed a holiday in your beautiful home county of Monmouthshire recently, and I chanced to speak with your wife”, Cas said easily. “I am Mr. Castiel Novak, and this is Doctor Dean Winchester.”

Mr. Jones had gone pale. His friend looked at us in confusion.

“Is something wrong, Ivor?” he asked. He was clearly a local, judging from his accent. 

“Where has the girl gone?"Cas asked bluntly.

“With my wife”, the man said. “I am William Benson. What is going on?”

“Your friend here is guilty of a mild deception”, Cas said, “of which I suspect you are an integral part. The girl is an important part of his life, yet he concealed her existence from his wife. When the good lady became suspicious, she took advantage of my presence in her village to ask me to investigate.”

Mr. Jones groaned.

“You cannot tell her!” he said bitterly. “She would not understand!”

“I would not understand what, Ivor?”

I really thought that Mr. Jones was about to pass out if not expire there and then. He spun round so quickly that he almost fell from his chair, and the sight of his wife standing there made him go first white, then red.

“Hannah!” he gasped.

IV

“Pray take a seat, Mrs. Jones”, Cas said courteously, “and I shall explain what is happening here. Thanks to my dear brother's efforts – yes, Dean, incredible though it may seem Balthazar is useful for something! - I indeed know what your husband has been keeping from you these past five years, and I can assure you, it is not as bad as either it - or he - looks.”

That could have been true, as Mr. Jones looked terrible. His wife sat down, eyeing him somewhat warily.

“I shall say at the start that there will have to be an element of forgiveness”, Cas said. “Though he remained in contact with and loved Miss Mortimer as you were then, Mr, Jones was a young man subject to the temptations of life in a busy port. Most young men commit at least one indiscretion upon such occasions, and Mr. Jones was no exception. Except that his one indiscretion led to a pregnancy.”

Mrs. Jones gasped. 

“A child....."

“No”, Cas said firmly. “Unhappily the lady in question chose to pursue the pregnancy, and died in childbirth, as did her child. Mr. Jones had behaved like the gentleman he had been ninety-nine point five per cent of the time, and had even offered to marry her – she refused - but when she knew she was dying, she extracted a promise from him. Namely to take care of her only other family, a much younger sister.”

I gasped. Suddenly I had got it.

“The girl's family was horrified at this, and initially refused all contact”, Cas went on. “However, about five years ago they were killed during a burglary at their house, and the surviving daughter, the late girl's sister, became the ward of you, Mr. Benson. Acting on an agreement you had secretly made with Mr. Jones, whom you had kept informed of the girl's progress, you sent him an envelope containing five orange pips. This was a covert way of communicating to the man here that the young girl had five years to go before she would reach twenty-one. Fortunately the girl was the sole beneficiary of a substantial estate, so there was no problem with money....”

“I have only ever used that for Margaret's benefit”, Mr. Jones said firmly.

“I believe you”, Cas said. “However, the Fates were against you. The very first of the reminder letters chanced to fall into the hands of Mrs. Jones here who, not unnaturally, was more than a little alarmed by your reaction when you refused to tell her about it.”

Mr. Jones groaned again, and put his head in his hands.

“I see”, Mrs. Jones said slowly. “Well, Ivor, what is it to be?”

He looked up, his face fearful.

“You would not make me choose!” he begged. “Please!”

She sighed in that put-upon way women do so well.

“I was actually wondering whether you wanted to move here, or have the girl come to Monmouthshire with us?”

He looked at her in astonishment, and Cas nudged me to leave.

Women! I would never understand them!

+~+~+

“I suppose that I can see why he did not tell her”, I said once we were back in my room. “I am only glad it was not as bad as I had thought.”

“Given appearances, I can understand why you may have assumed the worst”, he said with a smile. “But one should never assume. In his telegram, Balthazar also told me that the current political crisis is over, but he has a new one brewing, and it may involve yet another sea-crossing, this time to the Continent.”

“He wants you to go Abroad?” I asked, horrified. The man I loved might be away from me for months, weeks, even years...

He was looking at me in confusion.

“He may want whatever he wants”, he said firmly, “but there is no way I would ever go anywhere without you, Dean.”

I blushed fiercely, and made a mental note to reward Cas that evening.

+~+~+

I shall always associate Liverpool with a night to remember.....

+~+~+

Our quasi-foreign venture becomes a full-blown one, thanks to a patient who I lived to regret......


End file.
